Good day All , I have an old beat up pc200-6 i use occasionally on my farm . One of the final drives is leaking - can i just pump in some grease instead of oil ? thanks ---Mat ---
Even if you pumped it plumb full of grease, it would lubricate the gears meshing, but it wouldn't get to the needle bearings or the main hub bearings to lubricate them. You'd be better off tearing it down and replacing the floating seal as opposed to trashing the innards of the final, it get's a lot more expensive then.
Do you think it would be the same problem if you used a #0 grease?
Don't know, never tried that, sure it would be a better choice, but I can't say it will penetrate to the inner hub bearing or the planet gear needle bearings, I could only say the closer you get to a liquid consistency then it's going to leak out of the floating seal anyway, still back to needing to replace the floating seal.
In a word, no........either fix it or keep pouring oil into it.
I have seen farm hoes that were used very few hours, and walked only short distances, run with the finals filled with John Deere "corn head grease", which is a semi-fluid grease made for gear boxes on combines. It seemed to work, but I wouldn't do it. You're risking a hell of a lot for a small payoff.
yes as it no longer has an oil cooler I only run it for 30 minutes at a time and it doesnt travel more than a hundred yards from the house/shed in 8 years and sometimes not run for months or even a year . Maybe Ill try the thickest oil I can find and see how long before it leaks out
I thought of the same thing Mitch . The old JD corn head grease . JD had a specific number of pumps on the gun to fill each gear box on the head . I cant remember what it was ? something like 35 to 40 . Been a long time . LOL http://www.greenpartstore.com/John-Deere-Special-Purpose-Corn-Head-Gun-Grease-AN102562.html
I have and old IH TD20B dozer which has planetary finals on which the seals were leaking and no longer available. I drained them, bought 2 buckets of EP-0 grease, mixed in a gallon per bucket of 80-90 gear oil and pumped the mess in. I have run it a good bit since with no problems or leaks.
Ive done this, i mixed grease with gear oil to just the right consistency so it gets in the bearings but will not run out of the leak, used a silicon cartridge and gun to get it in the casing. I do lots of tracking round the farm, 2 years and still ok regards andy
I have seen it often, don't like it but it's what people can afford to keep the machine running sometimes. Ran into this on a 580k front planetary about two weeks ago doing a service. Wheel had no signs of a leak but it was slam full of grease, asked the owner about it and said it's been that way for ten years or more. Did not have the time or money to fix it then and still not going to fix it now, leave it. Some people can get away with it, if it was mine it would have locked up and shucked every thing inside.
I don't have an issue with people doing it but the problem is, most of the time there is something failing in the final that causes the seal to go out. All the grease in the world won't fix a broken gear or bearing. I can't believe someone would do it on a 580k front though. Not like it's hard to pop those apart. It's nothing compared to an excavator final.