I'm very new to any heavy equipment, however I noticed a leak around the final drive yesterday. Any idea what might be going on here. There are no leaks around the bevel gear case and the final drive, it's only on the outside as shown in the picture.
There should be a gasket there or just use silicone
Its nothing to do with a gasket so drop the plate off and look at the Dead Shaft nut and the locking plate.
There's a gasket behind that cover, it's plain to see the gasket has gone bad....five minutes to pull the cover and you should be able to see what has caused it to fail if it just happened, if it has been weeping a while maybe someone else removed the cover for whatever reason and didn't replace the gasket at that time and it had a bad spot in the gasket causing it to weep. Whatever the reason you should pull the cover to look.
The gasket is nothing to do with oil, behind the cover and the gasket is a grease filled area that should have no oil, the lock plate for the Dead Shaft nut can shear the 2 pins it locates on if it's not greased as needed, the most lightly problem here is the Final Drive needs a tear down, I hope the nut is loose and can be tightened up, then the lock repaired and the hub pre-load set firm but that gasket holds back nothing but grease.
I can't disagree with anything you said, however the OP is still going to want to pull that cover and see why it started leaking what ever it is. My D6C had a similar weep when I bought it albeit more grease than oil, I removed the cover to find someone cheaped out and put the cover back on with the old gasket (there was a inch long piece of gasket missing) after removing it probably to access that nut. Taking the cover off to investigate is a good place to start IMHO.
Plan for the worst , hope for the best job . Best get it in a shed where there is room enough to lift the back up a couple of feet to clear the track frame for sprocket removal . Thats quite a lot of oil for an area that should not have any . Going by the soil on the dozer it looks like it was a fast leak rather than one over weeks . Is that an oil stain on the other plates ?
I might have sounded a bit full on so sorry for that but please note my first reply, or better still look at a Heading I used to post on in Shop Talk called Caterpillar Sprocket Removal, I posted heaps of Final Drives being worked on by myself, I would have done 100's in my time they have slowed up to nothing this year but I live in hope.
No problems here tc, you have a mountain of experience and that's plain to see....I however have near zero so all I was trying to do was stress the fact to the OP that undoing the bolts that hold the cover would be the first move...after that things should become clearer. Maybe I should have used a few less words to express that point..
I don’t often leave the Dozer forum, but when I do… I’m amazed at the information/experience/photos that our members post…Tctractors I remember seeing your thread (started in 2016) and still enjoy seeing the jobs, tools, set-ups…real appreciate it all! Especially the old monochrome stuff!! Caterpillar Sproket Removal (also Komatsu) Just thought I would start a new thread on stuff I get up to, this will include sproket removal etc from D9G/H down through to D3, and Komatsus' from D30 to 155 as I dig out the pics. (May contain traces of nuts). HeavyEquipmentForums To the OP please post up some pics with cover off…my bet is you’ll find exactly what Mcrafty found, along with a bigger issue (which Tc is pointing you towards)…and good on you for paying attention to what your machine is telling you!!