Hi All, I've been looking to get some earthmoving equipment for my new acreage for the last year, and this forum has been very helpful in spotting common issues with some of the used equipment I've been looking at. I finally bit the bullet and picked up a mostly-working Case 350 Loader (4-in-1 bucket, counterweight, also came with a large pile of heavy metal brackeage and a very beat up winch not mounted). The person I bought it from was using it up to the day I came to view it, at which point it suddenly seemed to lose the ability to turn. I purchased it at a pretty steep discount, and finally got it home. I believe I've isolated the problem to either the differential or the final drive. The shuttle switches between Fwd/Rev without issue, the gear ranges in the transmission work well, but the steering brakes seem to behave strangely. I think that somehow the drive connection between the left side of the differential and the left-side final drive is not being made, so the right track drives forward and reverse fine, but the left track cannot brake the vehicle so it cannot turn. I'm going to open up the diff and check the brakes, hoping that it's just a brake problem and I don't have to start removing the final drives just yet. Can you guys suggest any other possible causes I should check before I start looking for a 3-1/4" slugging wrench to pull off the sprocket?
I was able to spend a little more time with the loader today and observed the following behaviour: With the loader in 1st gear, and the shuttle set to FWD: With both brakes fully disengaged, there is no movement at all. If I engage the left brake, the loader starts moving forward and pulls a little leftward. If I engage the right brake, the loader starts moving forward, but slower With both brakes engaged, the loader will move forward, but slower. Reverse works the same, but in reverse. I believe the problem is a broken drive axle or some component in the left side final drive, and am now going to see if I can find a wrench large enough to get the sprocket off so I can split the drive and see what's going wrong.
Good chance the top axle is broken where it comes out of the differential, take the final drive cover off and remove the small top gear and look back in the tube, replaced a few in years past, it takes a small handed person to reach back in and pull out the broken stub, My boss had young daughters we used for that retrieval.
Thanks Melben - I'm waiting on a slug wrench for the sprockets, then I'll get in and find out for sure. Lacking young daughters, I'll probably rely on a method we developed for pulling a broken axle stub out of the diff on a 5T truck: a close fitting vinyl hose attached to a pipe. Force it over the stub and pull, and it kinda chinese-finger-traps the axle and allows a surprising amount of pull - we had to use a come-along to drag the axle out on our International.