So both brake seals are leaking and I read everything I could find on the forum about replacing them. Brimming with confidence I ordered the parts and tore into it! I drilled holes in the seal and used the sheet metal screw idea and was able to pull it out to the edge of housing and it stuck there. I used progressively larger screws until the seal is all but destroyed and still stuck. This where I really messed up. I decided to take the housing off figuring I could clean it up better reinstall it without the seal and then drive in the seal. My problem is that I can't get the housing (which weights as much as I do) to clear the end of the shaft. I don't recall reading anywhere that the transaxel has to be droped to remove the housing but that is all I can think of and that is not an option for me. Anybody have any tricks? Thanks in advance. Jimr
There is no 'trick' jimr, to remove the brake housing you need to lower the transaxle. I take it you are doing the RHS (difflock)? Maybe if you dismantle the other side the whole crownwheel will move enough to allow the housing to exit the building???? Yuk, what a mess.........:spaz
Alrman, thanks for the reply... I'm working on left (without difflock) side first as it was less intimidating looking than the other side. I do need to do both sides though. Are you saying if I disassemble the difflock side I might gain some room? It looks like a 1/4 to 1/2" will give enough clearance to remove the left side housing. Lowering the transaxel would be a trick for me as I really don't have the right equipment for that sort of thing. Could a fellow get some longer bolts and replace two on each side so as to not lose your place so to speak? I have a floor jack that will handle the weight but there would be no stability if the transaxel was completely free.
Dismantling the RHS won't help a great deal to do the LHS, which you have apart, as the crownwheel is up against the pinion & it won't move very much. Also, the bull gears will also limit the movement. Re. the jack ... you have 2 big hydraulic ones on the back of the machine. Remove the back wheels; remove the attachments to the transaxle (brake lines/park brake cable/gearshift + 4wd lever/ diff lock linkage/ possible hose bracket at rear of transaxle/ driveshaft/s); lower the machine down to the ground, support the transaxle on timber, remove the mounting bolts & raise the machine. You could hang the transaxle on longer bolts, but you will still need to disconnect almost everything to do that. May as well lower it right out - it's your call. PS - if you do this don't mix the shim packs between LH & RH. Like I said Yuk......
May as well be a sheep as a lamb, huh?.... I had some stupid idea this was going to easy. Murphy was definitely an optimist. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help alrman. Jimr
Just an update. Pulled out the park brake lever, seat , floor, front axel engagement lever, the framing that protects the front drive shaft and both drive shafts, unbolted the RHS brake piston, got a couple chunks of railroad tie and took off the back wheels. I thought it best to reattach the LHS brake housing as turning the back wheels is part of pulling them off. Then lowered the tractor down until the transaxel rested on the wood. Next I began to try to loosen the bolts that hold the axel to the frame as I figured those would be the tough ones. Let me tell you... this is not the sort of thing a guy likes to be right about. They of course didn't budge with a 4' cheater so I got the 6' pipe... the nuts just laughed at me. Next I got out the torch the first nut started to turn red and I ran out of gas! Went to the welding supply store....they moved..... went to their new address got a new bottle of gas, go home and put the regulator on and turn on the valve and there is only 95 lbs. in the tank..... so back to the welding supply store and get another new bottle. I heated up all the nuts and am going to let them cool overnight while I drink. We will square off again tomarrow.... wish me luck. Jimr
Man .... Make sure the machine is chocked safely if your working underneath it, the way your luck is going ........ keep smiling
SUCSESS!!! I am pleased to report that the transaxel been removed from the tractor. I didn't even break a bolt.... the bolt I didn't break is the rear outside right, the rest of them just twisted into.:beatsme Well I don't want to make sound like it was easy, it was quite a lot of work to break them. Will grade 8 be OK to replace them with? I'm not really inclined to go to case for them. Alrman, as to your advise, it is hard to not keep smiling through this... if it were on TV I'd be laughing my butt off. Jimr
Great news! That's a big hurdle dealt with. Grade 8 bolts will be fine, install with antisieze for next time.......... Do you have a service manual to guide you through this? There are a few things you should be checking, like backlash & bearing pre-load.
Alrman, yes on the service manual but I find your experience more valuable.:notworthyThat brings up a whole new set of questions! (if you don't mind?) 1. Do use the same sort of "modified brake disk" that the manual shows for checking bearing preload? 2. How do you keep the other side from turning when you check bearing preload? 3.Is there any other way to check backlash besides taking off the top cover? (say at the pinion?) Thanks, Jimr
1) pre-load - I check by hand only, turning both sides at the same time, a hand on each side, counter rotating. When you have it right, there will be a firm resistence turning with one hand, yet firm, but smooth using both hands. Use a soft faced hammer to tap the side gears during this process as it will help with seating the bearings. 2) Answered already 3) Crown wheel is the only place to check. Do it in 2 or 3 different places on it also, checking 'run out' . You can use a rtv sealant in place of the gasket on the top cover. Clean the old gasket off, dry it up & apply rtv goop.
Thanks that helps a lot, experience wins out every time! My concern over the top cover is that there is a fair amount of grit on it that we don't want inside and the bearing plate is already loose on the side. I guess maybe a shop vac and a brush will get it clean enough? There was rtv on the shim side and the cover when this came apart, a really good as seal there was about 2cups of gear lube mixed with brake lining inside. It had settled on the bottom in clay-like mixture. Like you said yuk! Do you use rtv in these places?
Re cleaning - in the field I would use a paint scraper, wire brush & compressed air. In the shop, the whole transaxle would be washed down before I touched it. Re rtv - I don't use it in the shim packs. It will affect the pack thickness. Clean the shims & replace the oring, with maybe a smear of rtv on the oring as a lube.
Alrman, what is your advise for replacing the right hand side gear oil seal? I just realized that there is one and will need to order it. ointhead
Ditto. And the RTV only makes it more difficult to take back apart in the future for repairs. I'd clean the surfaces real good, use new o-ring, and smear some assembly grease on o-ring and mating surfaces for lube and to prevent rust/corrosion.
Willie59, thanks for the reply. That's makes more sense. I'm not very good at using the forum search yet so I apologize for asking questions already answered in other threads. Just found the advise you and alrman gave someone else doing this same job about removing the seals when the sheet metal screws don't work.... would have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had found that before. I'll use it on the RHS if needed.
Don't fret about that jimr, it's the human experience that none of us are perfect, and friends that can offer help and support have value more than money. :drinkup
Definitely needs to be replaced. Easiest time to do it is now, when it's all out in the open. Thanks willie! I was actually going to suggest greasing up those shims ..... believe it or not......... But they are probably pretty ugly with rust already. jimr - willie loves helping out with recurring questions/problems - it helps keep his post count up! :drinkup
Hi, all, back at it. After 5 days the seal got here then it started to rain and rained every day but yesterday. Yesterday it snowed. Anyway went out today and took the housing off and was cleaning it up when I spied this HeavyEquipmentForums the second one shows the problem the best this is looking straight down on the housing/bearing race. The ding in the housing has the race distorted .001 on the outside diameter, but the inside of the race looks good. There is no sign of the race being out of round on bearing surface. I would really appreciate any opinions and advise guys.
Looks like someone slipped while doing a bearing install, is that gap all around the bearing? or just at the dent? If it is I wouldn't worry about it. Those cups would not distort that easily. If it made you feel better, It would not take much to remove the cup, grind the dent & reinstall.
I agree with Alrman, someone like me, who has to (as I have aged) wear glasses...AND CAN'T SEE WORTH A DAMN WITH THEM, made a miss with a punch in a previous bearing race install. If anything, I'd take a flap wheel in a die grinder and smooth out that dimple. I don't think that ding would compromise the integrity of the housing.
Alrman, yes the gap is all the way around but at the dent. I really appreciate your advise, respect willie59 too. I can also relate to the glasses can't see with OR without them.:Banghead The way the bolt threads (at the axles) were rusted away I'm shocked that this transaxel has been out before How long do these bearing last? If that had happened when you were installing the race would you have smoothed the dent back down?
I have seen those transaxles fail in the first 1000hrs of use & seen them last near 10,000 hrs :beatsme The amount of time a bearing will last will be affected by 1) the quality of the bearing 2) quality of it's environment / oil 3) whether it has been contaminated by metal particles from a component failure 4) it's size & the amount of load on it Look into the cage of the cone, using good light & good glasses & see if the inner race is pitted in any way, if the hard casing is coming off there will be craters in the race. Also look at the rollers & be sure they are all free of any damage. You likely, will be able to reinstall them. Re - fixing the dent if you did it....... Some guys will / some guys won't - you had a won't - if he saw what he did in the first place. :drinkup
Thanks, alrman. I'll clean my best pair of glasses and check the bearing and inner race in the morning. If I can reuse the bearing I will feel like I have turned a corner in this project. I'm not sure why I wanted brakes anyway there is not a hill for miles.
And those "guys" make me absolutely bat **** crazy!
Here Willie, I fixed your typo:
Left side brakes are back together . I'll have to wait until the transaxel gets reattached for the brake cylinder though. Now for the right side...looking at the seal for the diff lock shaft, it doesn't look like the sheet metal screw trick will work. Any advise on R&R on this seal?
I guess I should be more specific...trying not to be to wordy. Have any of you guys that have done this job before been able to just swap the seals. The reason I'm asking is if the axel needs to come off (as my CD manual shows) I'll have to move the tractor to have room on the right side. I'm really grateful for all of the help here on the forum. Thanks jimr
The diff lock seal can be removed by making a tool, see this thread - HeavyEquipmentForums If you don't have an old shut off cable to make the tool, you maybe able to form one from a stainless welding rod? Did you get the main seal done on the RHS?
Alrman, thanks for the reply and the link.:notworthy Yes, the RHS was pretty straight forward after removing the housing. I put the housing back on before installing the seal so I didn't cut it on the splines. I'll have to make a tool like you said and keep my fingers crossed that I can the seal out with it. :drinkup
I don't get it, my backhoe (580SE) is an 83-4 with dry brakes. Not really sure if we are talking the same brakes. I removed the diff lock housing, I think it was 6 or 8 3/4" bolts, removed the brake assy and disk then collapsed the seal using a narrow screwdriver and pulled it out. Put the new one in and back together in about an hour. What am I missing here, this sounds like a horror story and I'd like to prevent it from happening to me in the future.
syndy, I don't think your missing anything. My '86 580SE is possessed and just evil:avid The mistake I made was loosening the housing from the transaxel.... DON"T DO THAT!!! I'm finding that somewhere in its life this hoe was severely mistreated by someone doing repairs. Maybe more than one someone, anyway I'm doing my best with what I've got and like alrman says.......keep smiling
Ok, brakes are similar to mine. I have 3700 hours and it is seemingly been babied as so far very little has gone wrong. I thought pulling the inner housing off would be much easier as well as removing the wheel. After doing a lot of reading and specifically reading about the shims I decided against it. I did remove the floor which did not help at all. Never removed the wheel but used the right tools and a miners lamp to see. I actually opened the brakes up three times. One, to replace the seal and remove grease/oil from the disk. Second to replace the disk with new as I still had no brakes and third to rework the ball ramps in the expander. The reworking of the ramps did the job and I did it in the field (patch of weeds) using a hand drill and a auto store grinding wheel. Maybe you can get a mechanic to perform a Exorcism on your hoe!
sydny, one of the many things I have not figured out yet is how to punctuate a search properly so as to get results that pertain to the query. I guess it will come with time, but as it ended up I would have had to lower the transaxel anyway. The RHS was leaking from behind the housing and the o-ring needed to be replaced. The LHS was full of a mixture of brake lining and gear lube which had coagulated into an inch of putty on the bottom of the housing and all of the friction surfaces were polished smooth. I couldn't have scuffed brake surfaces properly without taking the housing off. Lucky for me there are people here that are willing to help or I would end up selling it off as parts jimr