My father bought this machine 3 years ago from a non-takeuchi dealer, and after a little over a year had passed, it started to have drive problems on the right side only. At first, it acted like it was just stuttering, then it got worse after a day. After a couple of days, it went from just occasionally not having the right side tracks drive right away, to where the right side does not even acknowledge that you are trying to drive. The arms work fine, and the left side track drives just fine. We had a mechanic friend take a look at it, but he was not familiar with this brand, so all he did was check some filters. Inside the hydraulic filter, he said there were some brass filings in it. Anyone have any idea's that could help? There is brass filings in the hydro filter, and right side track does not drive at all, no acknowledgement that we are pushing on the joystick/pilotstick. We did not see any leaking hoses, fyi. Any help would be appreciated. The takeuchi dealer quoted a rough estimate of $15,000 (parts/labor) to fix it if the pump or motor had to be replaced, and we simply can not afford that at all. Been a while since I looked at the hours, but believe it had somewhere around 3300 hours.
I would remove the right side drive motor, disassemble, inspect and replace if necessary.
You only hurt yourself when you kept driving it instead of fixing the problem. To fix one loop would cost $5000-7500 (right side). Right and left would be 15000 would be both. I would check to see if you have any flow coming out of the valve or you could check the lines going into the motor when it is commanded on