955L 85J7889 serial. Been sitting mostly for many years. Purchases recently and found this final drive leak. Passenger side final drive.. Leaks while sitting. Probably leaks worse while driving. Unable to afford new final drive or duo cone replacing Currently. Any ideas on how to slow it? Will be draining fluid today and replacing fluid.
The more distance you run it and the more frequently you run it the more chance there is that it will seal itself. Duo Cone seals do NOT like sitting, which based on your "Been sitting mostly for many years" comment is probably what happened to this one. At this point you have nothing to lose. When you change the oil DON'T use an EP gear oil whatever you do. The additives in EP oils are known to attack the silicone rubber rings in the Duo-Cone seals. Use an oil that meets Cat TO-4 specification.
Interesting. I've used regular 80w90 in finals for many years. Mostly on JD and Hitachi though.
Thanks Nige. One of my friends just recommended I check the bolts. At least 6 were loose. Tightened them up (will do correct torque later). Squeezed out a bunch of gear oil and watched the final drive come together. Just purchased this thing and somehow missed the leak when going over it. I'll update in a week or 2 when I'm running it again. Right now going over everything before I move it. Seems to be really good condition overall, but a fair amount of little and medium things to fix and then check.
Apologies. I was assuming the leak was from the Duo-Cone seal. A good cleaning might shed more light on the leak source.
The leak is coming from the junction point between the 3 sealing faces. I see some red sealant there. Someone was dealing with this before. It's still leaking some after I tightened the bolts. What kind of pressure builds up in the final drive. Would a really good cleaning of the area and some black high strength urethane be enough to stop or slow it? I might pull the bolts and put lock tite on them. Good idea? I'm guessing that they are coming lose because of so much oil, and it's probably hard or impossible to get them to torque spec considering the locations.
Start by checking the oil level in the final drive. Is it way high.?
It's very low. If they hold 2.25 gallons each, there's probably a gallon that has come out.
Well that squashes that theory. i just wondered if fluid was leaking into the final drive causing over-filling. Back to the leaking between the cases theory in that case.