Third time posting! Case 1845c After I replaced the front hub bearings, I broke a drive chain a few days later. Upon inspection, not only was the drive chain broken, the sprocket cluster and shaft that it rides on we’re both Reamed out, the shaft worn badly. No sign of any bearings! I later found these In tiny pieces on the bottom of the pan. I bought a new chain, new shaft, and sprocket cluster with bearings and installed them. I didn’t pay much attention to chain tension again, and here five days later, that sprocket cluster, shaft and bearings are destroyed. Would a tight front chain and loose rear chain pull on that sprocket cluster enough to destroy those bearings? I’ve just ordered another $500 worth of parts. Drive chain, sprocket cluster, bearings and idler shaft. I’m definitely going to be careful to make sure I’ve got enough slack in these chains and they are all even this time. I think I know the answer to this, but was inproper chain tension the culprit? I do remember thefront chains were tighter than the rears
There is a post on page 5 about a 1845 breaking drive chains. Might help.
Did you grease the bearings on the cluster gear? Hard to diagnose failures from a distance but something is seriously wrong here. Where I worked up till April of 2015 we had a 1845C that was bought new in 1989. A skid steer is one of the most abused machines in a stone quarry and I just check the old files I have on this machine and don't see where we ever replaced the cluster gear, shaft or bearings. Snapped several chains to various hubs and due to the nasty condition it runs in the hub bearings had to be replaced a few times. All that said that 1845C was still hard at work the day I retired. For you to manage so much failure in a couple weeks time leaves me speechless. Sounds like you need to find someone who knows what they are doing to repair this machine before you have another repeat failure in a short time. One thing that scares me is when you use the term "chain tension". Those chains need "slack" not "tension", yes I know the book may refer to "chain tension" adjustment but they don't need to be so tight you can play a tune one them.
To be fair, you’re right the 1845C is an awesome machine. We’ve had them at work for the last 20 years. When I got this machine, I went through it to repair all the little things. Noticed there was a lot of play in the front wheels both in and out and left and right so I decide to replace both front wheel bearings. I think when I ran into trouble the first time, is when I had the chain slack to where I thought it was correct, I tightened the hub housing against the machine, but I had The hub too loose and it rocked the hub as I tightened it there by tightening the chain more than I wanted. A buddy of mine had the same thing happened. I’m pretty sure the front chain was too tight and then the back was probably correct. That’s the side that destroyed the sprocket cluster the bearings in the shaft. It literally happened in a matter of a few hours. Yes I did grease the bearings. The new idler shaft Is drilled to supply agrees to both bearings. After replacing all the previously mentioned parts, it ran for another four hours before the drive chain came off the sprockets. I hope that was that just a simple matter of putting the chain on, but when I reached and I could rock the sprocket cluster so I went ahead and disassembled it. Same exact thing as before I’ve got parts on the way, I’ve already checked the drive motor and sprocket, they are correcting the splines are perfect. It’s a pretty simple I just got to get everything dialed in
I bought an 1845 couple years ago. Fellow said he had new bearings/seals put in one wheel. After a month or so I noticed the front left seal started leaking so I decided to drain both side and drain and replace the oil and to remove the wheel that had the bad sel. I noticed the left chain was real tight but the right had a small amount of slack in it. So I took the wheel off , went ahead and replaced bearings and seals. put it all back together and adjusted the slack like the right side, replace the oil. Havent had any problems with it after 100 hours so I do think you need just a little slack. I did make sure the slack was the same on both front and rear. I think its important that both wheels pull or reverse together at all times.