At work we have had a few finial drives blow or seals leak.(I don't know if it is just a JD issue.) The hire ups seam to think it is because the operators are tracking around the wrong way. They think you should keep the finals in the direction you are driving. I was taught by old timers to keep the finals to the rear for obvious reasons. If you are using a buster keep them forward to keep pressure off them. I am hoping to put this to rest with some input for others outside the company. thanks for any help.:Banghead
Idlers go first. They use the big spring in the track frame to absorb hits.
Idlers deffinately go first. Track rails, track pins, and sprockets are disigned to wear the least amount of iron in the direction that it will be trammed the most, which in most cases would be forward ( idlers in the front, finals to the rear ), so like a dozer, it's not cost efficient to tram a tracked EX or dozer very far in reverse. Finals to the rear also protect your final drive motors, hoses, mounts, etc. from unseen obsticles when tramming in less desirable conditions or terain. I've known a few operators that had a bad habbit of tramming backwards just due to being lazy and didn't want to push the peddals with their feet so they chose to pull the levers back to them by hand to tram any where. But everything I've heard, seen, or read over the years, the concern of direction tram has always been focused around the most cost efficiency of iron wear and nothing to do with the final drives themselves. I don't know if you are swapping out with diffirent shifts or just occationally diffirent operators, or what, but is there a possibillity that someone might be picking up one end or the other to turn the machine and slamming them back down a little hard? That will take out final drives but is usually occompanied with a few frame cracks as well. If they are running finals first, the finals would get the worst of it with such turning techniques (or lack of). Good luck.
if the travel motor shaft seals leak the hyd. oil will leak into final drives and the pressure will build to the point that the final drive seal will fail. also I have seen dirt get packed into the seal area and prevent the seals from floating with each other and just leak. frozen mud will cause them to leak also, but they may stop leaking when the mud thaws. be careful though because they also stop leaking if all the oil has leaked out.
There are a few reasons that final drives end up leaking but none of those reasons has anything to do with direction of travel. Old age, not changing final drive oil and running in caustic materials are the more common reasons. The seals in a final don't care which way they turn. How old are your machines?
I agree with the previous post. the seals dont care which direction they travel. the idlers go in front. the final drives are designed to push the track foward not to pull it. while they can run in any direction you extend final drive life by running the drives in the back. running them in front would not create enough heat to cook a seal but you may want to shoot the final drive cover with a temp gun to see what kind of temps you are seeing? anything else on the machine over heating or leaking? might be rusty and gross inside? gear oil ever changed? how many seals were done on any 1 final? anything bent? did someone smoke the final drive, cover bent? i've seen that. PS: I know 1 guy who fires guys for walking his hoes with the idlers in the back or using high speed travel.
I think a better rule of thumb would be to keep the sprockets on the down hill side of your travel. If you are walking on flat ground it don't make any difference. But if you are walking up steep hills you want the sprockets on the down hill side to keep the weight of the machine from compressing the front idlers into the recoil springs. All that being said I've seen shovel loggers skid down hill with the idlers to the down hill side almost everywhere I've been. I haven't seen it make any difference that I can say caused a problem with the final. I haven't seen a final drive failure in years to a machine with less the 7,000 hours. I have seen more than a few broken recoil springs though. I never argued with the company over the cause unless someone asked. I just got paid to fix the problem. Just my opinion from experience.
Drives to rear. Hello. Think about this for a moment. You kick the left pedal forward, the left track goes forward. What direction/position do the drives have to be for this to be "right"? And, if I have my preferences, the sticks are the first thing to go.
Exactly what kinds of jobs did these "higher ups" have before they became "higher ups" in your company? Do they know about operator's manuals?:beatsme
This topic has also been discussed here -
Arabhacks if we took the sticks off the pedals some may have problems. John c. most of the machines have less than 7000 hrs. that is why I wonder if it is a JD thing. most of the companies I work for in the past had cat and komatsu. never saw a final go bad even with bad routine maintenance. we do have a couple cats and komatsu's in the fleet and as far as I know no problems.
Are your machines JD 350DLC?? There have been a couple updates on final drive seals for these models. As well as a new up dated seals for most of the newer John deeres. If you look at a old seal verse a new one the flange is thicker.
wnydirtguy I haven't heard about any problems with Deere but that doesn't mean they don't exist. What kind of oil are you running in them?
Ive seen this on the 240's and 270's as well,but not sure if they were covered in the PIP