I have a transmission out of a 525b cat skidder that I rebuilt about six months ago. It only has about 100 hours since rebuild, but has failed. Prior to removal all trans pressures were checked and were fine. Upon disassembly found two clutch packs that the fiber on the clutch disc were gone and collected in the suction strainer. On The clutches that had not yet shed the clutch material , the clutch material could easily be chipped off with a fingernail. These were aftermarket parts but have used the same supplier for years with no issues. At first I thought it was defective parts but the more I think about more I think there must have been some sort of solvent in the transmission at some point causing the adhesive to unbind . During this time the engine was out of the machine twice, not by me. This is the reason for the low hours. I wonder if it was water contaminated during the times apart and then flushed with ? Anybody ever experienced something of this sort.
Water will do it, or coolant if that machine has a water cooled tranny oil cooler?
Thanks Lantraxco, I think I will submerge a good one tomorrow to check. Scratch that ! I have since read the glue that binds clutch material is held by water soluble glue. There you go. Warranty voided. I would imagine the torque convertor housing was not covered when the engine was out. The oil did not look cloudy, I think it was changed to hide what happened.
I did not know that about the glue... years ago we had winch problems and found out the fiber type disks, at least the ones in the winch we had, were made from a cellulose material, essentially paper... even a minute amount of water would be absorbed and like in your transmission all the fiber went away.
From the description I'd guess the friction material is possibly Rayflex. Friction discs with this material are not permitted to be cleaned using water or steam, water-based cleaning solutions, freon, paint thinners, or ketones such as acetone. Contact with these or similar materials will weaken the base material and cause it to break up in operation. The other common friction materials are/were F37 (which looks a bit like hard rubber) and sintered bronze - which it obviously isn't in this case.
I'm guessing some forms of brake cleaner or even starting fluid (popular to use as a cheap cleaning agent in the field) might not be good to use on friction disks, I will make a mental note of that for future reference. Just never thought about it!