I got a ford 755a backhoe a while ago and the brakes seem like they need to be replaced. They stop the hoe, but pedals go all the way to the floor and on a decline take a little while to stop. I called a local equipment shop and they said it might cost $5000 to replace the brakes at $90 bucks an hour. I looked up the parts online and am seeing the discs and actuating assembly cost about $800 for the parts, unless I'm missing something they saying it takes 40+ hours. My question is can this be done at home by a mechanically inclined person, or is this way to involved with special equipment needed? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I'm thinking there may be additional cost involved in lube and seals, not knowing your machine I'm not sure but I think wet brakes means disassembly of transaxle/rearend so pretty labor intensive although 5K sounds a lot excessive to me. I would try it myself but thats just me.
First off have you tried to adjust them ...Your local dealer is not trying to shoot you a curve ball its a pretty involved repair ..The axle housings have to come off theres no way around that ..I've tried every way to do this and the best way for me seems to spilt the rearend from transmisson and roll the rearend out from under it ..Hope this helps ..
Koldsteele is right...... there is a lot of labor involved in replacing disks and seals. With that said have you tried bleeding the brakes? I have never replaced a set of wore out disks in this wet brake set up. What we often did find was the use of brake fluid in the brake system which will destroy the brake seals. This system uses mineral oil not brake fluid.
Btdt I've had 3 or 4 or these tractors, brakes weren't outstanding on any of them. They're strictly mechanical, you can get some more life out of them by replacing the adjustment bolts with longer (or is it shorter??) ones - have to grind the heads round like the factory type. Replaced them by lifting the machine up, taking the drive train loose from the frame and pivoting drive train down on the front motor mounts - then you can get at the axle trees. Just watch the linkages up by the brake pedals so they don't bind/jam up - best to unhook them. Really not to bad, just big and ugly - kinda like butchering a pig with a hammer.
Other thing is the axle lube. You have to use the Ford Spec oil from the dealer. I tried some aftermarket oil that supposedly was the same. The brakes chattered like crazy. Drained that and went back to the Ford stuff, no chatter.
Thanks for the input guys. I just ordered the operators manual which has the proper adjustment procedures, so I'll try that first. The bit about replacing the adjustment bolts sound interesting I'll look into that as well. From the exploded view parts diagrams online, I know the axle housings have to come off, but it looked basic. It sounds like you guys are telling me there may be more involved than a strait forward disassembly and reassemble, and $5k is probably par for the course.
Sounds to me to be very time consuming to separate the rear from the trans and drop out the rear. Has anyone just replaced the brake shalf boots to stop the rear fluid from leaking out a tear and causing the brakes to chatter. live to learn
i really hope 5K is way off. i have a feeling my brakes on my newly purchased 4500 are shot.
The wet brakes on the 4500's typically last for a long while. I have over 5300 hrs on mine and braking is still excellent. Perhaps an adjustment is all that's needed to remove some pedal travel.