Attached are pictures of our IH 175 B which has turned into a project. As noted in our posts with Boone, we have starter problems and radiator problems. Next Saturday, God willing, we will pull the radiator and starter and begin the process of having a great running machine. She is well worn, but the engine runs great, hydraulics work great and the rippers work great. We have pushed a mountain of cedar with her in a short time we have had her on the ranch. If we can get her fully operational, we have two ponds two work out, and two hundred acres of cedar to clear. As you can see from the pictures, she had a rough start, the fellow we bought her from flopped her on her side trying to load her on the low boy. No real harm done. She was set to right and we have been working her about an hour at a time since then, with a hole in the radiator. Assuming that is all that is wrong with the Beast, we can get our job done, and move her up to our next ranch for more work! ointhead
Wow! It definitely looks better right-side up. Bet that was a scary ride, not to mention extremely dangerous! I guess the guy who loaded it is okay. Glad you've gotten some good use out of it since then. I know you're going to get the radiator recorred, but your over heating issue brought this thread to mind. Might be something to check if you still have issues. Thanks for the pics!
Boone, fan belts are tight, tight enough we can turn the crank to move the flywheel around to get it started by pulling on the fan. The thermostat may be the problem, but still have to deal with the radiator leak. We tried some stop leak but no joy. Leak is about 10 inches up from the bottom of the radiatior. Do not know if it was there before she was flopped on her side or not but it is definitely there now. When she went over on her side, the sun cover-not-quite ROPS we got with her kept her from going all the way over and killing the fellow who was driving her. The auxillary hydraulic tank on the left side was not bolted down and fell on him, really brusing him up. Other wise, he was just glad it didn't go all the way over!
Yeah, get the radiator fixed and try a thermostat. While you have the radiator off it would be a good time to replace the water pump unless you could verify it's circulating the water. Maybe you can inspect your flywheel ring gear once you get the starter off. Would be nice if you could get by with just replacing the starter gear. Ahhh, the joys of buying used. Keep us posted on your progress.
Boone, that is the idea, radiator, thermostat, and water pump. We will see if we can get a mirror on the flywheel and check the teeth. Sure hope it isn't buggered.
Found a radiator!!! Through my ranch partner's web search and several phone calls, found a used radiator, oil cooler and track expander at a reasonable price in Illinois. Pressure tested and shipped. Should be here in time to work this weekend, we hope. Site was here: http://www.machinerytrader.com/list/dismantledsearch.aspx?ETID=3&Manu
Great find! Glad you found some without having to pay out the nose to have them fabricated. I see several decomissioned machines on machinerytrader. My mouth was watering looking at all those 4-1 buckets.
Boone, me too. I want to get the Beast running before I chump off any more money for a 4-1. I have a pond to dig and my ranch partner has his to clean out. The 4-1 would be ideal for that!
Don't you just love old iron!! We power washed the pans this Saturday and pulled the water pump to replace it. When we got the belts off, the lower main pulley was loose and had over 1/4 turn of play in it. The main nut was loose, almost stripped; someone had tried to tighten it with a chisel. We got it off, the woodruff key was over half eaten away and the front main seal was shot. Today we got the thermostat in and the main seal removed and re-bolted the dash board back in place. Hopefully this week, the radiator, oil cooler, track expander and new belts, hoses, and main seal will be in so next weekend we can start putting some of this stuff back on!!
Great thing about old iron is you get to find all the little gremlins. At least your finding it now!
Two steps forward, three steps backward. Received the radiator and oil cooler from Chartrand, all in a 175C nose, complete. We removed the 175B nose from the Beast, lifted the C nose off the pallet it was shipped on to install it, and found a chink in the radiator!! So--we removed the C radiator and oil cooler from the C nose and it is back to Waco to see if the radiator can be repaired. Believe it can be, but who knows. We are all ready for it. Decided the B nose is going have to go back on, as is the top tank from the B radiator, in order to get the hood to work right; as is the front radiator guard, which did not come with the C nose and won't fit the C nose without some serious fabrication. Belts are on, front main seal is in, just need to resolve this radiator problem. Believe the C oil cooler will work fine, if it all checks out.
The good folks up at Waco fixed the radiator in about an hour!!!! Upon close examination, it appears the radiator was stabbed (just barely) with a fork lift blade, just enough to break one tube on the radiator. No way to tell who did it. The truck line who delivered the radiator from Chartrand noted damage on the ticket so could be and Chartrand was kind enough to pick up the bill for the repair, great folks up there, do business with them if you can. Maybe we can get it on Saturday and back to work. Got to find an air filter. Three tries through the local parts house with no joy. May have to make the 50 mile drive to the Komatsu dealter!
Good news that the radiator is repairable and even better that Chartrand picked up the repair bill. You're going to be a pro at changin out that radiator, we'll know who to call if we ever need to change out ours. We had to pick up our filters (primary and secondary) at Komatsu. They mistakenly gave us the wrong secondary and we had to go back and swap it. Make sure they give you the right one!
I plan to carry the old one down there if Car Quest can't find one. The number match produced one about 18 inches long. The one on the loader is nearly 24 inches long. Same diameter. Boone, did you change your surge filters?
I got my air filter from NAPA, It might have been a 2284 which is what is listed for the early 175B's with a single air filter element in the napa book. The dimensions on that filter are 16.3 long by 9.9 diameter. open on one end with a bolt hole on the other and a plastic fin on the outside near the open end. If it has an inner and outer filter it's probably a 2950 for the outer, which shows 22.8 long and 8.5 dia. The inner, then would be a 2951, 21.5 long and 5.2 dia. Obviously 22 is a lot closer to 24 than 16, so even if your machine only has one filter in it, It's still probably the 2950 and someone just left out the other one.
Yellowrose, mine is a single filter, but maybe they left out the other. The parts book shows one filter but no diminsions, so I can't tell. Car Quest claims they found it now and it will be in Monday. Raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock out here now, so it will be muddy as heck out there Saturday, if we can get in to work at all. Hope to finish up the radiator install, put the starter back in and see if she will crank! I will go by Car Quest tomorrow and pick up the old filter and see if there possible could have been a second filter in there somewhere.
Saturday we mounted the radiator and oil cooler in the 175 B nose and mounted it back on the loader. We are in the plumbing business now. We had to order radiator hoses to match the new radiator to the engine and we need to find fittings to hook up the oil cooler. With luck, we will have the hood modified to match the new radiator fill cap, the hoses and oil cooler fittings set and a new air filter all to put in next Saturday. And we burned our big brush pile early Saturday morning; pushed cedar burns pretty well even when it is wet from rain!
I'm not sure which filter that one is, but the answer is yes. We changed every filter on the machine. Sounds like your making some headway on the nose. Look forward to hearing when you have it running again. We're just now making our brush piles. :usa
Yellowrose, there was a second filter up in there and got that ordered to day. We finally got everything back together and got her started tonight. Exepected a leak and found one, but not where we expected. A freeze plug under the forward fuel filter has a pin hole leak right in the middle. I guess we never had enough pressure on the old radiator to find it before. Fred Dillard at Dillard Welding did a bang up job on the hood modification, it fits perfect. The plumbing for the C radiator was a bit of a challenge to mate up to the B machine. We used several different pieces of 3' hose and some stainless tail pipe to fit it all together. The good news is, she started right up after sitting for five weeks. The bad news is, she is still propped up against the tree while we get the freeze plug out and replaced!!
Congrats Goldtrigger! Freeze plug shouldn't be too bad compared to what you've done. It's always something. We knew we had a hydraulic leak on both bucket curl cylinders. One was pouring pretty bad at the end of last Friday. Figured we were going to have to do a seal job, but after a full day of work on Saturday all the hydraulic cylinders had stopped leaking - and yes we had full tank of fluid. Turns out it just needed to be used and lubricated. After working ours this weekend I know now why you refer to yours as the Beast...lol!
Boone, glad your cylinders stopped leaking. We have a hydraulic leak somewhere in the right rear near the reservoir, not sure from where. As the Beast has sat for 5 weeks, a substantial amount of fluid has stained the dirt. Have to figure that out someday. Ordered the freeze plugs today, some none hardening sealent and the inner air filter. Just another $84 bucks! All should be in tomorrow so maybe we can get the freeze plugs in and start the Beast up again and see what else leaks!
The Beast is Alive! The Beast is Back! We finished her up on Sunday and finally got almost all the nagging little leaks fixed. We have one small oil leak on the valve cover gasket but other wise, she is pushing cedar like a champ! All is well in on the ranch again!
Glad to hear (and see) you got it up and going. That looks very similar to what we were doing on Friday.
Heavy Digging Going On! We have been doing some serious digging of late. An old pond on the west side of the ranch dried out so we have been digging it out. Caliche clay bottom is hard as concrete but we are working through it. We are down about 6 feet in the middle now. Lost a trunion pin on the bucket Saturday, found it, got it back in and rigged a keeper with a piece of threaded rod till we can get the right-sized bolt. Still hotter than hades out there about 2:00 in the afternoon. The radiator repair is holding well so far. Have a serious oil leak off the valve cover gasket, that we will fix next. Pictures follow.
Hermine Filled The Pond UP!! We did not get to finish the pond dig as we had hoped. We got a lot done, but still lacked about half the pond to clean out, and then Tropical Storm Hermine showed up yesterday. Last night and today we had between 12 and 6 inches of rain, depending on which side of the storm you were on. Killeen, TX got 12 inches, Copperas Cove got 8 inches, and the ranch in Lampasas County got about 6 inches. A couple of more pictures of the dig before we finished it and what it looks like now!
Looks like you still got a lot of dirt excavated. Are you finding an excuse to use your rippers?
Boone, we used the rippers some at start; had to as the caliche was so hard. Once we broke through the crust, we could push up buckets full pretty well. Wish we had some grousers on the tracks, we could push more!
The Beast is Broken We have fought through a dozen or so nagging problems and have learned a lot this Fall. Between additional freeze plugs and a fuel tank drain out fitting that cracked, we have spent about a much time fixing as we have operating. After three weeks of good cedar clearing, the Beast broke hard last Monday. The ground was soft and the cedar was going down and stacking easy. No pushing near as hard as we were in digging out the pond! All of a sudden, something popped in the left final drive. The Beast won't pull on the left side, just pops as grinds and drive doesn't turn. I assume something in the planatary set or drive gear from the transmission has broken or come loose. There is plenty of gear oil in the hub, so that was not the cause. Any ideas of what we will find when we get the hub off? Parts locations?
Pictures of a Broken Beast Obviously, the Beast is worn out. The track and sprocket are just about gone. Pictures tell the story. Looking for a final drive-complete!
That's a bummer. Did you see any metal when you drained the oil out of the hub? Might be a good time to do a brake job while your in the business of breaking tracks and into the finals...if it needs it. Not that you need more to do Looks like your making progress. Hope you can find a final drive in short order.
Broken Final Drive Boone, it turned out real ugly. We got the hub off, which was a major drill. The planatary was fine. Appeared to have been replaced not too long ago. BUT, the shaft coming from the next level of the final drive, which drives the sun gear of the planatary, was just flopping around, bearings are shot. The hub was full of metal shavings, both steel and brass. From what we can tell, this means we need a complete new final drive. Rebuilding the current final drive appears to be a major drill. At the moment, I am on the hunt for a used final drive I can afford.
The F/Ds in the 175/TD 15s were usually fairly bullet proof, in all the ones we had only ever saw two have problems both on 15s, one was the ring gear came loose on the bull gear @ 14,000 hrs and chewed things up and the other was a 15B that the sprocket was that worn to the point that it was jumping its teeth on the chains and ended up breaking the axel from the bull gear to the sun gear. Other than that they were problem free many had 12,000 + hrs on them. Cheers RDG.
RDG thanks. Will a 15 final drive fit the 175B?
As far as I know they are the same F/Ds just on the 175 they are swung further forward to put more track to the front because of the loader, the basic concept of the 175/ TD 15 250/ td 20 150/ TD9B was the engine / power train / running gear was basicaly the same in each machine but I think the hyd pumps might be different on the loaders because of the need for more oil flow etc. Rocko 59 over at redpower would be the one with more details. Cheers RDG.
Hate to hear that. There are many of those machines around. I'm sure one can be found. The trick will be finding the right place. RDG, do you know if the 175B and 175C finals are the same? There's a place around here that has a 175C final...not sure if it would fit.
RDG and Boone, thanks for the help. I have located a 15TDC final. Ouch for the price. Advice from one knowledgeable fellow is go ahead and take the rest of the drive apart and fix it. That is, since the planatary and sun gear are nearly new, fix what is behind it and we will have a better drive than perhaps a used one might be. Weather is going to crap for the next 5 days and then business travel for the next week so we won't get back to it for a couple of weeks.
The weather is warm now so we have plans to go attack the intermediate final drive this weekend. I took the power washer out this afternoon and cleaned off everything on the left side. Started the Beast up, as I have done every week, brought it up to operating temp, exercised the bucket and rippers. It is really sad that the old machine starts right up and everything is working well now except the busted final drive!
Hi Goldtrigger There is a self centering brg on the inside locating the small center shaft it looks like this has collapsed as they do . the easiest way to get the bull gear section off is to undo all the bolts and drive it of the dowels with a long bar you can hit with a sledge hammer putting the bar through from the other side between the rear of the track frame and the sprocket at the bottom, there are two dowels about an inch long opposite each other the puller bolt holes will be well rusted by now . Its easiest to assemble it all off the machine (bull gear down) it makes lining up the planetary hub a lot easier. Hopefully none of the brg rollers have got between the bull gear and the pinion just remember if you have to pull the pinion make sure the brakes are locked firmly on (holding all the discs in place) cheers malcolm
Malcom, thanks for the tips. There is a PILE of shavings in the hub outer cover, so something truly was chewed up. The big dowels on the outer cover were seriously rusted and took mucho hammering to drive it off. Once we have the sprocket off and get into the second level, we can then determine if the centering bearing is what is bad. Something brass was also chewed, as much of the shavings in the hub cover were brass. Looking at the schematics in the book, I can't see any brass sleeves but there had to have been one or something like that in there somewhere. Understand about the discs, last thing we want to do is pull the top off the BEAST transmission! Hope all is safe for you and yours after the big shake down there!
Hi Goldtrigger All ok down here thanks I am in the north island luckily , You dont have to remove the sprocket to remove the inner housing but looking at your photos you are only a few bangs with a hammer on the sprocket to move the outer brg and it will be off. The self centering brg is a double cone roller brg locating and carrying the bull gear it probably has a brass roller cage as i cant remember any other brass . You are a bit unlucky as they are a good final drive I only had one do what yours has done after many years of looking after Td15s and 175s , we had one we bought new in 1974 and the magnate on the rh final drive came off and stuck to the bull gear not a pretty sight luckily IH were paying at 200 hrs regards Malcolm
Malcom, Thanks again. I looked it over yesterday afternoon; have a pipe just long enough to reach under and drive the sprocket carrier off. Cold front expected in with thunderstorms tonight so may have to postpone work till Sunday. Where do you find parts? Komatsu supposedly has them here but are mighty proud of them. Bearings usually can be found at other places, but seals and IH unique stuff either has to be used or from a couple of dealers I know of, one in California and one in British Columbia. The California folks are listing a new bull gear at $800. Ouch! Boone found me a used complete final for $1200, so I am hoping the carrier bearing is all there is wrong, and I can find it at a bearing dealer.
Wow, great info from Malcolm. I may have to print this section out for future reference. Goodluck on the teardown!
Bad Day at the Ranch! Well folks, it went really bad! Nothing inside the secondary case was usable except for the small carrier bearing on the end of the shaft coming from the transmission. Handsfull of bearing parts. The cone bearing was completely gone. The case was broken around the cone bearing housing. The bull gear lost a full tooth! I have to find a complete final drive!!
Ouch! Hate to see all those wounded components. Probably a chain reaction once the weakest part failed. You're probably exploring all of these places already, but here's a few links of a quick search. General Gear is showing finals for a TD-15C listed on the website (not sure if up to date or if those would fit): http://www.tractorparts.com/ih.htm Might find a few leads here: http://www.machinerytrader.com/list...earch&PST=Starts&fullsearch=175+INTERNATIONAL You have the other place I mentioned. Have no dealings with any of these places, maybe someone on the board has.
Thanks Boone. I will give these guys a try. Went all through the Machinery Trader weekly mailer yesterday, didn't find a drive in there. I will have to try their web site. As usual, our real job takes precident over work on it and Turkey season is coming up soon!! Maybe a couple of weeks before I can get a day to play!
Somebody over at redpowermagazine.com should be able to help you out.
spitzair, Thanks for the tip. I have an old post over there, I will update it.
Bought a final, it is on the way. Once I finish my real job work week in DC, will try to get back to it next week!
That's good news! You'll be back in the dirt in no time. Did you have much trouble finding one?
Used Macinery Trader and posted a request.Got 4 hits, bought from folks in Alabama.
Used final drive shipped on Tuesday, should be here Friday. Parts to repair the left track expander also shipped. Next week we may be back in business if we get time and weather!
Final Drive Arrived! Final Drive Arrived Today! Looks good. Sprocket looks better than our old one. Once the seal arrives, we will put it back together. Malcom, any suggestions on the process of pulling and reinserting the new pinion shaft. I know you said lock the brakes. Any other tips?
Goldtrigger, how's the Beast? Was very curious as to how the final drive project was going. Weather and other obligations haven't allowed us to do anything around here.
Finally got to it yesterday. Have a guide pin stuck in the loader I can't get out so I wound up pulling the belly plates and changing the oil and filters. Got to load up the generator so I can use my big 1/2 in drill to bore out the guide pin. Still no rain so can't use a torch to cut it out; too risky, high fire danger and the beast is sitting next to a large pile of pushed dry cedar that would go up in second if any spark got away from me. All the parts are in and sitting next to it out in the field. Starting to get hot. 93 today, 40 mile an hour south wind. Glad I am not a fire fighter!
Hi Goldtrigger Sorry havent been here for a while ,Pinion should pull straight out with the brakes hard on (dont let the kids play on the machine while it is out) If you have oxy acetylene you could try heating the dowel pin red hot and then quench it with water to shrink it . looks like fun wish i was there . regards Malcolm
Out on business travel this week to South Carolina. We will give your idea a try if it ever rains; too dry right now to use a torch out there right now. Shot it with liquid wrench every time we go by and give it a wack but so we can't get it to budge.
I've had good luck with a freeze spray made by Locktite can't remember the name "Freeze off" maybe? I used it in the guts of a machine that had oil everywhere and I was afraid of fire. Two of us with three foot extension on the wrench could not get a fitting loose. A long shot of that stuff and I was able to do it by myself.
Hi Goldtrigger Another thought those dowels usually stay in the main housing side , memory is a bit rusty but looking at your photos the dowels in the new housing might drive out downwards and you could use the ones in the main housing might save a lot of drilling . if you have to drill try a 3/8 hole right through and then your freeze spray through the hole will give it some where to shrink to. Also put a bar around the bullgear to check the brg that failed on your one is ok regards malcolm
Final Drive Arrived! Komatzu and Malcom, thanks for the tips. I am back in Texas after an absolutely miserable flying trip to Charleston. Took me 2 days to get there. Flying around all that thunderstorm/tornado mess to get to South Carolina was not fun. I will be back out on the loader on Monday. I will look at the new-used final and see if either of the guides can come out. If so, I may just put the other one back in the loader and work it from that angle. And if that is a no go, I will try the freeze spray. Still no rain down our way, some in North Texas, but nothing around Ft Hood/Copperas Cove, so fire danger is extreme. I will keep you posted.
Guide Pin is Out After four hours of drudge work, and thanks to your tips, the guide pin is out. We had to bore it out, then tap it and pull it out. Now we have to work to get the new/used final on. Pictures enclosed.
I like that! Good ole field engineering.
Making it work with what you got...aggie engineering style. Nice work Goldtrigger. :thumbsup
Two steps forward and a giant leap backwards. We were finally back at it last night, just before a small thunderstorm blew in. We toted the generator and air compressor out to the ranch and the plan was to pull the badly damaged pinion shaft and put the new one in and polish the mating surfaces of the final drive before we put it together this morning. We locked the brakes as Malcomb suggested and slowly pulled the shaft out, about 4 inches and that was all she would move! We rolled it around tried several different angles and it was a no go. Got on the phone to Willie and Duane up at Chartrand in Illinois, and read off the serial number of the Beast, and guess what, the Beast is a new series machine and has a snap ring that holds the pinion shaft in so we have to pull the top off the brake assembly to get to the snap ring. Aarrgh! Because we have rippers, we have pull the fuel tank, which we just topped off, and just about everything else on the top of the loader. Pictures of this mess to follow!
It sounds like your working conditions are similar to mine. I'm not looking foward to doing any major jobs on my stuff.
Bugger I have to say after many years looking after TD15s and 175s I have never had to lift the top rear cover , Pity I am so far away I would love to come and have a look best of luck regards Malcolm
Wish there was an easy way in there, take a look!- :cool2 here are the pictures. We had a huge thunderstorm Saturday night, maybe a small tornado. With any luck, it might have blown it away, fat chance! After my morning real job, I am on my way out to the ranch to see what is left and vacuum out the battery well and see what is down there. As a fat boy standing on my head trying to see what is down there, it is not fun. Too many hoses and cables. The manuals are not real clear as to what goes where so will just have to start disconnecting see what comes loose. I may drag the power washer back out there and give it a go to see if it clarifies the battery well any.
The best of luck....I wish the pics were bigger.
Sha-zam! That doesn't sound like a quick job. That's a real shame Goldtrigger. Hopefully your manual's got a pretty good procedure for the disassembly. I know what you mean about the miriad of hoses and cables under the seat. Hope you get it going without too much of a headache.
I will try to make the pics bigger. I have them at 3 mg pixels but could not upload them.
Larger Pics
Bigger Pics
A thought can you get the round pto shaft cover plate of the rear , maybee you could reach the circlip from there it dosent look far from the rear cover to where the circlip willbe there must be an access hole along side the crown wheel best of luck malcolm
Malcom, Thanks for the picture. You have made it infintely more clear than the picture in our manual. Do you have phone number we can call you? An international phonecall might be worth the money to help us. We have been talking to Chartrand and they tell us we cannot get to this snap ring from the pto entry. Would you have any other pictures better than this one? According to Chartrand, there is a small plate accessable from the back of the loader, under the fuel tank, held down by 4 bolts that, when removed, allow us to remove the cable that drives the brake pack. Once that is disconnected, we can remove the entire outer final drive carrier with the pinion shaft entact and get to the snap ring. Does that sound right? Our concern is having the brake clutches fall down and not being able to get the shaft back into the loader.
Hi I had assumed the circlip was on the inner end of the shaft it looks now it is either on the inner side of the brake assy or on the inside of the inside pinion brg . It makes more sense now to disconnect the brake cable and remove the inner final drive housing you are nearly there just another ring of tight bolts. The whole brake assy will come out with that housing virtually all the black pieces in the drawing. the housing holding the brake discs is bolted to it as well so will stay together and go back the same way .If you can not reach the lower end of the cable just disconnect the top end and push it inside to come out with everything else maybee tie a small rope to it for more control . . You will have to balance it fairly square to get the shaft out of the clutch disc and the inner gear , Again the clutch disc will stay clamped tight as long as you dont pull the lever .I dont have any more drawings just memories but you are saving your self a lot of work this way you will also be able easily line up the brake discs as you put the new shaft through as they will be right there my ph no is 09 2381116 feel free any time regards malcolm
It was a fun day before the heat set in! More Aggie engineering. Walt and I started work at 0600 this morning loosining the big bolts on the inner final drive carrier. We had concerns about how we were going to get the one's on the lower side loose. The 3/4 socket set on the 3/4 breaker just would not fit on some of them. 1 1/8" is their size so a open/box wrench was the next option, but we had to come up with a way to get enough torque to break them loose. Solution, Using Walt's Kubota Gator's winch, we hooked the winch cable to the box wrench while I held it and Walt operated the winch. Once broken loose, all but one were finger loose Next problem was getting all the crud off the small plate under the fuel tank. Back the 25 miles to town to haul out a barrel of water and the power washer and power wash everything under the seat and under the fuel tank. Once that was clean, the bolts on the small plate were visible and came loose with the air ratchet. As you can see, we can see the cable we need to disconnect to complete the disassembly. Problem is, you need a skinny, tripple-jointed arm to reach down the six or so inches to disconnect that pin so we can pull the assembly from the loader Conclusion, the fuel tank, ripper control and hydraulic tank MUST come off to give us room to pull this pin, but more importantly, hook it back up when we reassemble! By that point it was just after 1230 and about 100 Degrees and we were done for this weekend. Happy Memorial Day to all you Vets!
cable are you sure you cant undo the top end adjuster i think there is a spring loaded cable return which comes up into the housing from the bottom and probably held up with a circlip which would allow it to be pushed down to go out with the assy . once the housing moves out a bit there should be room for it all , sure will save a lot of work if you can cheers malcolm
Malcom, good point. I will run out to the ranch as soon as I can and take the camera and shoot up at the top end of the cable and see what is holding it up there. Instead of reaching down to undo it, you maybe right; maybe we can undo it at the top, which we can reach. That would make it a whole lot simpler. We will let you know.
Malcom, et al, we are shut down for a while, with no success in finishing the final drive removal. After further consultation with Duane at Chartrand, we ignorant newbies finally understood where the two 15/16 inch bolts were located in the brake pack well. Using a flash light and a mirror we could see one and get a socket and extensions on it. Despite maximum hammering with the impact wrench, it would not break loose! There was no room to work a cheater bar on it. We tried all our tricks and finally gave up with the realization the fuel tank, hydraulic tank, and ripper control were going to have to come off. Even if we could get the bolts broken loose and out, we doubted we could ever get them back in and torqued properly with the tank assembly in place. Sunday night we drained the fuel out, cleaned up everything around the loader, shut everything down and brought the tools back to town. I am away on business and vacation for the next 3 weeks, so it will just have to sit there and bake in the fine Texas sun!
Goldtrigger, thanks for keeping us posted. I check-in from time to time for updates on your project. I know it's frustrating as there is little room on top of that transmission case. We've surveyed ours a few times for what ifs that would cause us to remove everything to access it. Best of luck and hope you have a good vacation.
Final Drive is OUT! :notworthy Success at last. Thanks to all your advice and help, we got the final drive out Saturday. Friday, we got the tank assembly off, not without some problems. Whomever put the suncover/ROPS on the Beast welded the ROPS to the deck and in doing so, partially captured two each of the horizontal bolts that hold the tank plate in place . So, it was back to town on Friday to haul the torch and bottles out to the ranch to cut the welds and part of the ROPS plate out of the way so we could get the bolts out. We wound up cutting one of the bolts on the left side out, it was just too much trouble to cut around the ROPS to free it up. We used friend Walt's winch on the front of his Kubota gator to lift the tanks off, worked like a charm. Turned out the ripper buffer was not even hooked up!, Just a dummy assembly sitting there, the hydraylic line was capped off. We'll try hooking that up when we re-assemble. Once the tanks were off, we could see our power washing had not done as much as we thought, ugly under there. But the area to get at the two bolts we needed to free the final drive was clean enough, so we got the long extension and 15/16" socket on them, 8 foot cheater and they popped loose easy. Using a short lenghth of parachute cord to tie the brake actuator lever out of the way, a pry bar to lever the final drive loose, it came right out. The pinion shaft turned out to be held in by 2 circlips. We had to take the brake pack apart to get out the 2d inner circlip. The pinion shaft we received as a replacement will probably not work. We thought we could take it to a machine shop and have the circlip slot cut into it, but the inner slot is off the spline area and no way to lengthen the splines I can see; too thin in the shaft size in that area. Other than finding a correct pinion shaft, one inner shaft seal and a replacement boot for the brake actuator cable, we are probably good to go for reassembly. Hopefully that won't take too long. We start work at 0600 and have to be done by 1100, it is just too hot otherwise. We will powerwash next weekend and begin reassembly if we can get the parts!!
Great job on getting the final off! That's a slick way of lifting the tanks off too.
Boone, the lift method worked. When you are 15 miles from town and have no access to another tractor, it worked fine. We used a come-along to do the radiator, but we didn't have the gator then. I could have used the winch on my pickup, but the gator winch is more precise. After long consultation with Willie at Chartrand and emailing pictures to him, we are now convinced the pinion shaft we have can be modified to work. Just need to cut the snap ring grooves and we will be good to go. I will go out to the ranch in the morning and pull the brake gear to take to the machine shop so we get the exact cuts we need on the new shaft. I need to go look at your battery box modiifcation. While I am waiting on the pinion shaft to have the snap ring grooves cut, I am rebuilding the battery tray. As with yours, my batteries were just sitting in there with no hold down. The oak tie downs look good. My battery tray is rusted/corroded completely gone. Picked up some angle iron today to start building a new tray. By the way, for you guys who need parts, Willie, Carol, and Duane at Chartrand have been just super in helping us with technical advice free of charge on this thing. Can't say enough good things about them.
Good to hear you are making progress! What is a ripper buffer?
OldandWorn, the ripper buffer is the large spring looking device laying on the ground. It mounts on the left side of the fuel tank plate and has a hydraulic line feeding into the base of it. When it is hooked up and activated, it allows the rippers to "float", that is maintain a constant down pressure and if they hit a big rock or something, to take the shock in the ripper buffer rather than blowing a hydraulic line or pump. We have used the rippers some, did not realize the buffer was not hooked up, thought it was as the line was running into the base of the buffer but was capped off. The rippers worked fine, guess we never hit a big enough rock!
I was going to ask if you were using the Komatsu dealer for any of your parts...was curious about parts availability? Sounds like Chartrand has been providing great service with parts and more. Will keep that in mind. We were somewhat lucky on the battery box. All it needed was the plywood floor, threaded rod and the oak clamps. It's working well. On our second power wash we found a bunch of junk under the brake pulleys. It was dirt hardened like concrete. Had to dig it out with a screw driver. Used lots of ProForce degreaser from Sams. Like you, we thought we did a pretty thorough job on cleaning the first time but discovered we missed a bunch.
More work to be done! While it has been down, I finally pulled the belly plates and cleaned that area out, geeze what a mess. As with yours, there must have been 10 years worth of dirt junk, lost bolts and tools and geasey muck piled up insided each plate. I used my old Army entrenching tool to clear the rocks and dirt out from under the Beast to get up under there, plus to ensure the rattlers had not moved in since it has been sitting for 6 months. I used a pointing trowell to dig most of the junk out of the belly area! A lot of my belly plate bolts had not been put in correctly and had come loose and were half bent over, so I had to work them out with Vise Grips and in one case, cut it off with a grinder, then I retapped all the threads. I used new bolts with flat washers and lock washers to put them back on. Somewhere in the history of the loader, the front plate had been lost and a home-made one had been put on. It was bent in half, we used the rippers to raise the loader up and lower the back end of the loader on to the plate to flatten it. Went back on a lot better! I am hauling the power washer back out this Saturday and we will power wash everything on top again. We will have to change all the fluids in the transmission box and the hydraulics. The hydraulic fluid that came out looked like milk! Just another expense! Car Quest has been the best for miscelaneous parts (belts, hoses, filters, seals). The nearest Komatsu dealer is 90 miles, so we haven't tried them. For IH specific stuff, we have gone with Chartrand or Traxx or Brown International. Brown is good, but expensive. Walt came over tonight, and as Willie at Chartrand explained to us, the new shaft will work fine. We put the brake gear on it and measured it every way possible. Just need to get it to a machine shop to have the snap ring grooves cut.
Hi good to see some progress . One question do you really need the circlips we went for years with out them I can not see what they do apart from hold the remains of the disc onto the shaft in a complete melt down. Every thing is held in place by the outer housing any way . so what is the point just a thought regards Malcolm
Malcom, we considered that. The brake gear could probably get by with only one circlip on the front side, just to ensure it stays in place. As you say, the early models didn't have them and the circlip grooves are really shallow, could almost be cut with a Dremel tool if we were careful. We will see what the machine shop guy says. If it is too much money, the Dremel tool and one clip may be the way to go!
Checking for rattlers in the belly is good idea! We had a snake encounter last Saturday, but nothing serious. I'll try to put up a post about it. Glad you'll be replacing the milky fluid. Changing out all of those fluids really adds up. It's really getting hot here and I can only imagine your working conditions. My hat's off to you and Walt! Do you guys have much cedar left to push and ponds to dig for the Beast?
Boone, if we pushed all the cedar we needed to push, we have about 50 acres left to push. Won't get that much done with the Beast. Plan now is to sell the Beast about 1 August and rent a straight blade in the Fall after it cools off. Let someone else pay the maintenance and we can buy the fuel and transportation costs. We can lease a JD 450 for $1200 for 40 hours with a 6 way blade. Believe it will do all we need done. The USDA will pay a pittance to push cedar but they want to tell you where and how much and lots of other restrictions. I am not interested in letting them back on my place. Found a machine shop in Lampasas that is cutting the snap ring grooves for $20. Will have it done by tomorrow afternoon or Friday morning. Got the seal for the shaft from Car Quest for $15. Picked up a gallon of Purple Power wash to cut the grease off when we power wash Saturday. Maybe we can get started on reassembly Saturday, high temp is expected to be 100 so it will be an early start and an early stop! Next week I am in DC on my real job then it off to vacation so won't get back to it real soon, but we'll see what we can get done! Don't want to forget how to put it back together!
Can't blame you for wanting to sell after it's back up and running. At this point it probably would make more economical sense to lease. Guess you could make a capital hit in a newer machine and hope to sell later at close to the same price. But that's a risk and like you alluded to, you'd still be on the hook for maintenance and potential breakdowns. Newer JD450 would probably be a quicker machine too if it can push up cedars well.
From what I have seen the newer JD 450 is an all joystick machine, much easier and quicker to operate. Cedar is not hard to push most of the time, some of my trees are 40 foot tall with 15 foot root balls, but they don't go very deep. The advantage of the Beast is I can get up high with the bucket and lean them over, then scoop the root ball out with a second move! I have a lot of clean up to do if we can ever get enough rain to burn the piles we have pushed already. Once burned, as you know, the root balls, leave dirt mounds that need to be smoothed out. My ultimate goal still, is to build a pond on the southeast corner of the place. We were just about ready to start on it when the final drive broke. We had about 10 acres more cedar to clear then begin the dirt work. Whether the boss lady of the house will agree to all I want to do with the 450 remains to be negotiated! At noon today, I will go out and set up the sun shade and power wash the Beast in prep for work tomorrow. Have to run over to Lampasas and pick up the reworked shaft after that!
Just How Much Water can We Run Throuh a Hub to Wash it Out!! Last Saturday, a very!! warm day, we started the process of washing out the crap off the loader and the final drive inner hub. An unbelievable amount of shavings were still inside the drive hub from the chewed-up gear:Banghead. We used a gallon of Purple Power on the outside of the loader and in the inner hub and finally filled it up with diesel and still had to go get another 55 gallons of water to finish flushing the shavings out. We have a Superfund site from waste oil and crap we have washed out on the ground around the Beast. Once we have it running again, we will stack a huge pile of cedar on that place and burn, assuming it ever rains again in Texas. The ground is so oil soaked now, it burns well all by itself Finished the battery box rebuild and the overall clean off the top of the Beast. Now with a clean outer final drive hub, we can start putting parts together this weekend. Happy 4th of July!
Battery box is looking good and that transmission case looks much cleaner! Speaking of batteries - I may be buying two new batteries for ours. They're 7 years old and almost didn't turn the engine over last Saturday we worked. Dad was going to ride over to the farm and check them today as we have a work day planned on the 5th. Don't want to get over there early and find out it doesn't crank.
The finished battery box with the wood floor plate and wood hold downs looks even better. I copied your design and it works really well. I have had to buy one new battery so far, it just would not hold a charge. I brought my oldest (2009) battery in from the ranch Saturday and put it on the trickle charger. It took all night Saturday, all day Sunday, and when I left for DC early Monday, it was finally up to snuff. I was afraid it was bad, but it came back!!:notworthy
Reassembly is Underway! It has been a long hot summer in Texas and it continues! Sunday, August 28, was the hotest day ever in my town, 112 degrees :tong. We are making slow progress on reassembly of the Beast. Last Saturday, we got the inner hub assembly back together with the brake pack and new shaft and got it bolted back up to the loader! Took lots of pushing and shoving and bad words but it is all bolted back up. Pictures show prepration of the inner hub before bolt up. Had to scrub down the surface before mating so we could hope for a good seal! We got the brake actuator and cable assembly reconnected, access plate back on and remounted the fuel and hydulic tank, but did not get them bolted back down, got too hot by noon, so we quit. I went out this morning and took a look at the fuel and hydraulic tank; it is going to take some additional jacking around to get it back in the right position to bolt it down. I worked on one broken off bolt in the tank bed, bored it out, now have to extract the bolt remains and rethread it tomorrow morning. I hope by next Saturday, I will have the tanks bolted down and we can start on clean up of the outside of the inner hub and moving the outer final drive for final assembly. Goal is to have it all back together by 1 October!!
Your right about the heat, this has been a long summer. Hope it's a little cooler on you in sept. I've been serviceing the 250C and have a little heating issue but dove season starts thursday and it will be real hard to stay focused.
250 c You are so right! We will be up at Coryell City Friday night to shoot doves. And again Saturday night! Makes it hard to stay focused on Beast repair.
You guys work in style....where is the BBQ pit set up? :cool2
Old, we could not have a BBQ fire out there. No rain since May, dry as a pop corn fart out there. 255 counties in Texas under burn ban. If we ever get rain and get the Beast running again, we will move some of our cedar piles on top of our HUGE oil spill and burn up the oil soaked dirt currently under the Beast. The big yellow spring looking device is the hydraulic buffer for the ripper. Weighs about 150lbs and has a one way hydraulic line entrance at it's base. When the rippers are down and pushing, it allows the rippers to "float". If we hit a big rock etc, and the rippers kick up, the hydraulic oil is surged into the hydraulic buffer and not blow a hydraulic line! That is the way it is supposed to work. We thought it was all hooked up, but when we disassembled everything, we found the buffer was capped off and the line going to it was capped off. We may try to hook it back up upon reassembly. Question we have, why was it capped off? Did it leak or something? Guess we will find out.
The things I take for granted working close to a shop...and electricity. Seems we were always needing to walk down to the shop for something we didn't have in the barn shed. Looks like you have to take everything in one trip. Glad to see you making some head-way! Hopefully, fall weather will come soon and give you guys some relief.
Boone, you are dead right about working in the field. We tote everything out there, have taken to leaving it all in place. The cows tend to push stuff around, but not so bad. Big worry is fire danger. If the place ever catches fire, we could lose it all plus the Beast. We have a HUGE cedar pile just to the east of the trailer where all the tools are stored; it is so dry it will burn like crazy when ever we get the burn ban lifted. We always have something we need that we have to make a list for next time we are out there. 15 miles to Copperas Cove, Car Quest and home, 17 miles to Lampasas and Tractor Suppy.
Goldtrigger I just got back from my dove hunt in the panhandle it wasn't as good as in years past--the drought has them too. I've been thinking of trying to locate a ripper for my 250 but I want to get everything else straight first. Right now I can't get the oil plug out of the oil pan and have to take the hi-lo shift apart to find out whats wrong.
250c, We had a great hunt at Coryell City Friday night, if I could hit anything we would have got our limit! Old black dog did wonderful, didn't miss a bird! Saturday night we went back, the wind shift and the birds were more wary. I couldn't hit squat. No one did as good. House duties the rest of the weekend and tomorrow back to real job. Will take advantage of this cool weather to work on the Beast in the afternoons this week. Fires are scaring me bad! Need to get the Beast moved away from the cedar push piles and into open ground in case the fire gets on my place
More Progress Every day we can get to the ranch, we make a bit of progress . The inner hub is bolted up, the fuel tank is back on, Walt got the fuel lines reconnected last evening and one of the hydraulic lines reconnected. I polished up the mating surfaces of the new final drive and the inner hub and they are ready to go together. We need to get the hydraulics finished so we can put the batteries and seat back in and start the Beast up. We use the ripper to lift the rear end off the ground to allow us to mount the final drive correctly. Between dove hunting and family visits, may not get much done for the next couple of weeks.
Nice Goldtrigger....good to have the inner hub part of it done.
Old, thanks. We struggled a bit getting the inner hub all lined up and back in but once it was lined up, it greased right in. The fuel lines under the tank were a royal pain, just like everything else. The brass connectors on the bottom of the tank were ancient, bent up, and threads half gone. No one around here had anything like them. Finally raised the tank back up a couple of inches to give us some working room, lossened the line support connectors up where they are held on near the seat brackets and Walt was able to get them back on. That was after I had worried with them for two afternoons! We began the process of hooking up the hydraulic lines to the tank and figured out the replacement hose I bought for the return line was too stiff. Got to go find that somewhere today. None of the local supply houses had the inch and half size required. Got the output line reconnected. Once the hydraulics are connected, we can refill the fuel, hydraulics and transmission with fluid and start the Beast. She hasn't been started for 4 months so that should be a chore!
Hi from down under , you guys look to be doing ok , one question did you put the dreaded circlip back on the new shaft or did you make it easy for next tim regards Malcolm
Malcom, we are the bolt-a-week guys! But we are making progress. The weather has finally moderated a bit, might have rained last Saturday at the ranch, nothing at the home place yet. But it is cooler. We did put the circlips back on so the whole thing has to come apart again. But, knowing what we know now, we would start by taking the tanks off and go from there. In Washington DC this week for real job but back at it next week. Hope to finish it up in a week or so.
Nice thread!
Thanks, D&G, It has been an interesting and sometimes fun experience. As an old auto mechanic and long ago farm mechanic, working on the Beast has been a reminder of how America used to build good equipment.
Well said. I found I really enjoy working on the 250c not withstanding buying parts or 100 plus deg weather to put them on. I actully got to work on my stock tank this week but blew a hose yesterday. I have real world work for the next few days but I'd like to get the tank mucked out soon cause I know "its got to rain someday"
Agreed. Really enjoyed the progress reports and pictures. The challenges you face by not having a great place to work or the perfect tool is what makes adventures like this interesting. We kinda expected to have to bring our loader back home by the end of this summer...figured something would need repair by now. But so far...knock on wood...I think we'll be working into the winter with it. The new teeth are holding up well in the rock!
250C you are optimistic. I am sitting here at Dulles airport waiting to go home watching a steady rain come down. Trying to figure a way to bring some home all the way to Texas. it has rained every dang day up here this week! Listening to WBAP out of Dallas over the internet while I wait and the weather forcast is cooler weather and NO rain! At least it is a bit cooler! Got to get out to the ranch this next week and work on the Beast; at least turn a bolt or two! Bow season starts in a week!
"Bow season starts in a week!" LOL
Yesterday was the 90th day over 100 degrees this summer! And a cool front blew in late last night! We had 7/10 on Monday and 7/10 of an inch rain last night. Just enough to collapse the sun shade I have over the work site at the Beast! Caught a double rainbow over the Beast with my cell phone camera, got the get that off and posted. In the morning, bow season starts so we wil bow hunt early, then turn a few bolts on the BEAST!
GT,I didn't get that much rain but the the temp drop was welcome. I worked the 250 some this week and I'm still getting a little warm on the really hot days (maybe the machine is smarter than me).I'm going to need 3 or 4 carriage rollers soon also. I've got a couple of feeders running in the evening so I'll probably go sit on one of them with my crossbow but I'm more likely to have a hog show up than a deer. There are a few live oak acorns starting to fall. Not much else eat that I can see.I wish you luck tomorrow.
Well, the bow hunt didn't yield any meat on the table. I had one small doe come under the feeder. Watched her play and shy away from me. Friend Walt launched 3 arrows, all he had in the quiver, at a couple of spikes, but his sites were off, and he had to go home and rezero the bow! We got a lot done on the Beast today! It was a gorgeous cool day, and we were able to bolt down the tanks solid, reinstall the side panels to the seat and gear control column and install the new battery box! Progress!! I will get out this week in the afternoon and install the batteries and load it with fuel and fluids and see if it will start!!! Next weekend is a 3 day family weekend, so no Beast work for me! Probably will be somewhere with the Boss Lady!
My hunting was unproductive too. Ran the 250 yesterday morning and again this morning. I'm pretty sure my heat problem is the fan and shroud plus the coolant pressure valve leaks a little, maybe I can find some somewhere. I lost a couple of teeth off my bucket working in rock also tore off the lead edge on the side of the clam shell (note to self: "stay out of the rocks" ). We've got family plans next weekend too I'm oncall to do pretty much what I'm told too lol. I'm starting to get my stuff together for Colorado elk season (15th) so I don't thing much is going to get done at the ranch. I don't think I have to worry about it getting too wet to work though.
Anyone that carries Wix or NAPA should easily be able to provide an air filter. Also Fram or Baldwin, Donaldson. I prefer the Wix myself. Keep a close eye on the hydraulics. These machines were noted for problems, especially in the two hoist cylinders, which tended to shed packing and seals with regularity. The rods also tended to bend rather easily. Likewise, the Drott 4 in 1 buckets tended to have weak cylinders for the clam operation. This produces a droopy lip section that tends to swing loosely and won't stay closed. Generally, the two cylinders need new seals and packing, but the pistons and tubes may be scored too. I liked operating the 175's. Easy to steer and they have a good engine and tranny.
Surfer, we just need to get it running again! We were able to find all our filters at Car Quest, especially nice during a big sale they had last Spring! So far, knock on wood, our cylinders have held up well. We have a lot of slop in the knuckles so that may help take some of the stress! When running, the Beast works easy, just a bear to keep going. Lot of hours of maintenance for a few hours production.
Boone, Great pics, great post!! I had some time off yesterday and read through it all. It makes me miss my 'ol 955H I bought just before heading over here to Afghanistan. I'll be home in a couple of months and will get to do basically the same to it as you did yours. The rails are worn out and the sprockets and rollers arent much better. The D330T runs good. I'm having an issue with it pulling though. I've had time to research over the last 10 months and think or hope its a bad hose that connects two steel lines for the suction side of the pump. Then there's my TD9B, it runs/works pretty well, but needs some previous repairs (previous owners) redone to be right. Keep the info and pics going.
dhutch, that's very kind of you to say. I can't take credit for Goldtrigger's thread and the work on the Beast though LOL! He's tackling a whole different area of his machine. I'll be seeking his advice on undercarriage work if we ever have to tackle it. Hope you get home from Afghanistan soon and are able to get your 955H going. There is a local 955 I've driven by to look out of curiosity. Looks very similar in size to the 175. I'm sure it would make a good farm tractor. What type work do you have planned for yours? Goldtrigger, any updates on your final drive?
dHutch, Also hope you get home soon. Boone and I have been keeping each other posted for a long time on two very different machines. Boone's has made his almost new; I am just trying to get mine running again! Boone, hunting season is underway and we have stopped work on the Beast for more important things. Everything is ready to go to put the outer hub on, just got to figure out a way to lift up (about 800 lbs) and mate it up. Got to get back at it next weekend!
I understand that. We've been deferred awhile too with other family obligations. My brother cut the place couple of weekends ago so it's not so grown up. Without grazing animals, a place can get unkempt in a hurry. Maybe we should've bought some goats!
Goldtrigger, I apologize for jumping in on your thread. I had read through Boone's post on rebuilding the front half of his loader, I didnt realize you were doing the back half of yours. Great post and pics. I'll be following along on this one as well. HOpefully you'll get it going soon. I understand hunting season though. Turkey season will be coming in about the time I get back to Tennessee, then the bass bite and so on and so on...............
Progress at LAST! We made good progress this past weekend. The final drive is on!:notworthy. The batteries are back in and the engine turned over first try!. Just need to finish tightening up everything, put the ripper buffer back on and get the track back together. Next weekend we will see if we can get the buffer back on and the fluids back in. Pictures follow:
Bugger you guys have all the fun and I only have my ride on mower to fix these days all looking good cheers Malcolm
Malcolm, wish you were here to lend your expertise and strong back! That inner hub and final drive was a major grunt and groan to shove in place. We used the bar on the top of the sun cover and a come-along to lift the final drive and the winch on the Kubota gator to pull it close. Finally, we had to drive back to town and buy a couple of longer 5/8 bolts to pull it in the last two inches! I went back out last night and made sure everything was secure and covered as we may have a shower tomorrow night! Still no significant rain here and none expected till next March! And, I just winterized my riding mower but will probably have to cut the weeds one more time before it is parked in the shed for the last time this year!
Sweet! That final seems like it would be very awkward and unbalanced to lift and mount. Your on the downhill side of things now. I know your ready to get it finished up.
Rep;y to Boone Boone, I certainly hope it is downhill! It has been a long tedious job. We call it a bolt a week project! Seems like every time we go out there, we need something from back in town! I was pleased when I got the batteries back in and hit the starter, the engine turned over, sweet! Used your battery hold down design and it works well. [
Great job Goldtrigger, hope everything else works out with no surprises. Looking forward to pics of the Beast working.
Looks good! That ought to keep those batteries in place.
Goldtrigger, absolutely smashing thread, the little loader is a real credit to you. Do you think it is more of a technical challenge to work on these machines or more just of the large size of everything? And is there a good way of unfreezing tracks to put back on the machine? Cheers
Farmer Alex. No great technical challenge at all. Our biggest problem has been a lack of experience with this particular machine and terrible repair manuals. The help we have received from guys on this forum has been invaluable! It is all standard stuff, and it is big and heavy, but nothing technically complicated. We have Aggie engineered half a dozen solutions in the field to problems we would have never had if we were in the shop. I know you guys down under consider our 15 mile distance a joke but it always seems the exact bolt we need to finish a task is either not found on site or broken or stripped. Whether the track will come over the final easily next week will be another matter I know of no easy way other than a big sledge. Example. This past weekend, after a very successful deer hunting session (a ten point, a spike, and a doe) we gathered to put the final touches on the final drive. We got all the bolts on the final torqued and decided to use the come-along rig to lift the ripper buffer up before we took it down. Got the buffer up (it weighs about 300 lbs) and in place and could only find one of the two bolts needed to cinch it down! The other bolt we had used earlier in the process to weld an extension on it an effort to bolt the final up, so it was ruined. Bottom line, the buffer is up, but not fully bolted down. Had to take the welded bolt with me when we left the Beast and take the bolt 15 miles back to town to buy another. Oh well, another day in paradise! Boone, finally found some paint! Ace hardware has Cat yellow in spray cans. We used about five cans this past weekend to cover a lot of the scuff marks on the Beast. Looks a lot better!
Glad to see your almost there and congratulations on the hunting.
It was a good opening weekend for gun season! Weather was perfect. Boss Lady tells me we got a little rain today, hope some fell on the ranch! i am in DC this week on my real job. More rain expected tomorrow, we can only hope; maybe get the burn ban lifted in Lampasas County!
You planning on using the Beast any after you get it buttoned up or put it up for sale immediately? Maybe you guys will get some rain this week. We have a little expected Wednesday. Temps are suppose to get cold here next couple of days. We're planning a work day on Friday with two tractors and the loader running. Friday morn is expected to be upper 20's. The 466 has started with ease in low 50's, haven't tried much below that...not sure how she'll handle the 20's.
Boone, maybe just a little. Have to move the Beast about a quarter mile up to the ranch entrance to make it easier to load when we sell it. I also need to move a couple of the dead cedar piles over the spot it has been sitting for the last year to cover the oil soak so when we do get to burn, we can burn the oil out of the soil. Also, in my north 11 acre field, in the middle there is a small tree patch of about 10 cottonwood trees that I would like to push down and move out of the way. It would make it a lot easier for my cowboy to plow when planting. There is a spring in that area, so have to be careful and not make too big a hole or it may make a small sink there. Other than that, I just want to get it up to the entrance so we can get it sold. Long range plan is still to rent a straight blade late next Spring and finish our planned pond on the southeast corner. The Old Beast was running so well when it broke and hopefully will still run as good when we get this part finished. It is an incredibly powerful machine. If it had a decent undercarriage (tracks are worn out), it would really be good for pond work. It would push and scoop a full bucket of tough caliche dirt with no problem. We have put it back together a lot better than it was when it broke. Like you did with yours, lots of new bolts where bolts were missing or stripped, all new filters and lubricants, and by the way, ain't that stuff expensive:tong. Whomever buys it will get a better machine than I got when I bought it. The Beast starts easily with ether. Just keep shooting it till it gets going. Coldest we have started it is about 40. It is raining at home right now, don't know how much, any is better than what we have been getting. Cowboy planted oats 16-19 Oct and they are just getting going. The deer we shot were full of them. Rain will give them a good start.
A little more progress this weekend. More paint, seated the ripper buffer and bolted it down. Walt brought out his new toy, a Miller Bobcat 250 and welded the semi-ROPS sun cover a little better. Today I acquired a new hydraulic hose to hook up the buffer and after one trip to Copperas Cove and one trip to Lampasas to get the right pipe fittings, I figured out I am going to have to unbolt it, hook up the come-along and lift the buffer about three inches so I can connect the hydraulic hose correctly. That dang buffer weighs about 350 pounds! I hate these short days! Ran out of daylight! I did get the operator's seat back in place and bolted down and the arm rests on the seat repaired with duck tape! Rain expected tonight. Hope it is more than the .7 inches we have gotten during each of the last 3 frontal passages!
I'm glad to see your progress GT. Sorry I haven't been around for moral support. Elk/deer season without adult supervision has kept me away. I did manage a cow elk but the bucks here haven't been cooperating. I think since I posted last I tore a transmission cooler line off (no belly plate) man that thing holds a lot of oil. All is fixed now and I have been building what will be a good size tank/duck ambushing place. If this drought holds I should be done in 2014 lol.
250c, glad you got an Elk. Last time I tried in the Arapaho National Forest, all I saw was Elk berries and live Moose. Last Elk I killed was back in '73, sure was good meat. The rain that came through today was not worth a good spit! I spent all afternoon over at Temple at the VA so didn't acomplish a darn thing. Tomorrow I will get out and get that buffer lifted and the hose hooked up. We took five deer opening gun weekend! 10 point, 8 point, spike, 3 does, one of which we did not find (bow shot). We tracked that bow shot doe all over the place but never did find her. Looked for buzzards all week and no joy. Second one we have lost this year. Congratulations, Boone on your Mason, your newborn Son. Looks like a go getter!!
Glad to see you making progress too. I know what you mean about those short days. Something's just not right about going in to work at dark and getting home at dark. Hopefully, Mason will be a go getter. It'll be awhile before he can reach the pedals on the 175 though. 250c, those transmission lines are big! Hope it didn't take any of your fittings when it tore. Someone here on the forum has posted a youtube video of a 250. That thing is a monster!!
Boone,Congratulations "Dad". It did get the coupling that goes into the torque converter but thankfully there was enough left sticking out I was able to get it out without too much trouble. Man that thing holds a lot of oil! GT I didn't get a drop of rain.
Buffer is ON! 250c, same here, these fronts have got to start to doing something besides making the wind blow! Beautiful day today. A little cool, especially when the sun went down. Finished hooking up the buffer. I got the hydraulic line hooked up without having to lift the buffer. Just unbolted it, slid it over to the edge of the deck and screwed the hydraulic line up. With a little shoving and grunting, got it back in place and bolted down. Then hooked up the line to the output connection and all is GOOD!:notworthy Tried out some Tractor Supply Transport Yellow Color spray paint, nearly matches the other yellows on the Beast. Tractor Supply has it in 1 gallon cans so will invest in a gallon and waste it on the Beast. 85605[/ATTACH]
Looking good GT....almost there!
Old thanks, it has been mighty slow! New muffler will be in today! If I don't run up to Waco for some sheet aluminum for the trailer I am helping build with friend Walt, I will put the muffler on and fit the cover on the buffer. Saturday, God willing, Walt and I will make the push to get the fluids back in and get the Beast started! Wonder how many leaks we will find
Hi Goldtrigger The buffer you talk about is called a Hydro Spring in IH speak do you understand why it is there and how to use it . Progress is looking good . regards Malcolm
Malcolm, thanks for the nomenclature. No one has ever given us the real deal on this gadget. It is part of the ripper system as far as we could tell and nothing in our 175B manuels show it. From what we surmized, it is designed to take up the shock of hitting an immovable object when operating the ripper; so that we don't blow a hydraulic pump or line. Our we close to right? It was not connected when we disassembled the Beast to install the final drive.
The Beast is Alive-Again! We got everything hooked up except the drag link on the final drive, had to go get some new pins for that. Old ones were worn beyond use! Modified the cover for the Hydro Spring and got it on and bolted on correctly. It is all hooked up and should function as intended. Put all the fluids and fuel back in it. Bolted the hood back down and the exhaust stack. Put EOD Keith in the driver's seat and told him to hit the starter. He had never driven a track loader or even started anything like it. He hit the starter button, first push the old girl started right up:notworthy. Make us really proud. She has been sitting dormant for over a year, hasn't been started since last April and she started with no ether or external kick to the batteries. Once running, we found a serious leak to the control valve for the bucket lift. That will require a disassembly and new O-rings. I guess the Beast has been sitting too long without exercising the hydraulics. We need a couple of new clamps on the new return hose for the hydraulic tank; it had a class 3 leak on either end of the new hose and the old clamps just would not tighten up enough to shut it down completely. So, need to figure out how to get into that bucket control valve and disassemble and re-O-ring it and re clamp that hydraulic return hose. Holding our breath, we did not find any other leaks and we ran the engine long enought to get it hot and exercised the bucket and ripper up and down several times. Walt will work this week to find a drag link coupler and pins so we can get the track back on and we should be just about ready to move it! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, will be away for a week visiting Grandbabies.
I'm glad your up and running! I had 27 years in Army maintenance and had to chuckle at the "class 3 leak" statement--you gave yourself away lol. Have a great Thanksgiving!
Hi from down under the hydro spring is there as a rough ground absorbing system to allow the bucket to float up and down when traveling with a full bucket most operators have it turned off unless traveling a long distance. It makes the bucket very hard to control if on when leveling or cutting to grade . The 175 was not designed as a ripping machine so there is no benefit having it on then, but no harm done if its on (may bee some class 4 or 6 leaks) If I lived closer I would love to come and have a drive. regards Malcolm
Hydrospring Malcolm, thanks for the education. Wonder why it was disconnected? When we did our big pond dig last summer and it was not connected, and the Beast did fine from what we could tell. Obviouly, we did not go long distances with a load, but we scraped the bottom down ten feet before the hurricane caught us and filled the pond up! With it connected Saturday, we exercised the bucket and ripper repeatedly, no leaks in the hydrospring!
Looking good GT and Happy Thanksgiving! Glad the Beast is alive and well and close to tracking again. That hydro-spring is a neat concept. I noticed in this vintage video there is a convincing demonstration of it's effectiveness involving a glass of coke - it's the type of demonstration you'd expect in a mattress commercial. Fast forward to 4:08 in the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE2ax8w9xY0&feature=related
Boone, thanks a lot. Amazing how that works. Wish I had all those blades! I will have to see if the hydrospring compresses like they show it when we get the track back together!
Hi We kept it turned off for more bucket control also those springs used to break maybee you do not need any more grief with this machine have a try but a floating bucket is hard to control and a broken spring may not look so good in the for sale photos cheers malcolm
Malcolm, probably why they had it disconnected. Doubt we use it at all. Definitely do not want it broken. Like you say, I do not need another dollar going into the Beast that I do not have to put into it.
Back to Texas this morning from Florida. Beautiful weather here. I know now why folks move here. 68-70 degrees all week, light rain one morning, other wise, just kept the windows open wide the whole time I was working here! Beautiful walks along the beach! Back to the ranch tomorrow. Friend Walt says they got 1.38 inchs of rain in the gauge at the ranch and burn ban was lifted in Lampasas County for a couple of days. He was going to try and burn some of the cedar piles while the ban was lifed but cold front came through with strong north winds so I am not sure what he got done. Will see tomorrow. Will start on the hydraulic leaks and see if I can get those done before we finish up the final drive and do the track this next weekend!
Progress and Help Needed!! Progress this weekend and we need a question answered. The track is back together, engine is running, the beast is moving and and everything is going well!:notworthy We still have this severe hydraulic leak out of the front of the control valve of the lift cylinder actuators control. We disassembled it after welding the track back together today but could not figure out how to get the valve body out. The four socket head screws came out that seem to hold it in, but it did not budge. Any idea how we get that valve body out of the assembly so we can replace the o-rings? Pictures are Walt welding the track back together and some of the cedar burns we did as we finally got enough rain so they have lifted the burn ban for a while. Still have several cedar piles to burn!
With regard to the hydraulic control valve. We spent a part of the day discussing the valve and looking through the service manual. Appears the only way to do it is pull the whole control mechanism, take it to town and put it on the shop bench where where we have light and cleanliness. From the manual, there just seems to be way too many small and intricate parts in there that have to come out and would surely fall into an inaccessable place if we try to do it on the loader. We have learned the hard way with the final drive that it is always better to follow the manual than try to work around it and spend twice as much time and effort. Suspect we won't get to it before Christmas now, so Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!
Began the process last evening of draining the hydraulic fluid from the tank. The tank drain hole is covered by the welded-on ROPS so we have to syphon it out. A very slow process due to the size of the syphon hose and the weight of the fluid. 25 gallons will be a waisted! Once out, we can then remove the valve pack and bring it in for service! Maybe tonight! Appreciate the slightly longer days.
Hey Goldtrigger, probably too late, but maybe you could use willie59's suck bucket if you have too much trouble syphoning. We picked up an O'ring the other day from Komatsu. They were so busy they actually just gave it to us. Got to fix a leak on one of the transmission line fittings going into the the filter assembly. It's always something lol!
We used a similar suck bucket rig to drain the transmission case, worked great. Unfortunately, I did not have a vacuum out there last night. The other thing, the heater hose we used to drain the transmisson case was destroyed by the transmission fluid. The fluid actually ate up the rubber hose! I am going by the parts store on the way out this afternoon and see what I can find in plastic to finish up the job. Still wondering what kind of O-rings etc, will be required to repair the valve pack.
Hey glad to see you back at it. I've always been able to use buna orings on spool valves the the exception of military tracked vehicle that use fire retardent fluid.
I can get parts and service manuals for your machine a lot cheaper than the dealer... We have been a IH equipment seller for over 35 years.We ship all over the world... Let me know if you need books or parts I might be able to help... www.cpecanada.com or [email protected]
Finally, it rained in Texas and we finished the Final Drive and the Beast is Alive After all these long month and many, many distractions, we finished the final drive install and started the Beast and had a MAAJOR hydraulic leak on the valve pack controlling the bucket curl. Took the whole valve assembly off, took it to Calabama Hydraulics in Killeen, TX and paid them to rebuild the valve pack, worth every penny after looking at the schematics. After another month delay while we welded up a motorcyle trailer for a friend, we got the valve pack installed, the tracks adjusted and the Beast is alive! And it has been raining like crazy in Texas! Most rain in 3 years. Ponds are full and mud is deep! The good old Beast started after 9 months of not being started on the first pop, and it runs great! Moved it off the spot it has been sitting and leaking fluids for over 18 months and piled a big pile of cedar on it and lit it off yesterday to burn the fluids out of the soil! Now I have to clean up the Beast and sell it. Any body interested?
Glad you got the beast operational again along with some much needed rain. The way it started, it sounds anxious to get to work. Let us know how you come out selling it...
Clean UP Loaded up all the old used up parts and scrap metal yesterday that my trailer would hold! Severly flattened the springs on it. Still have a few more pieces of junk to haul off today. I moved the burn pile around a bit with the Beast and relit it as it was really wet from the rain. Probably will have to relight it again today. Moved the Beast up toward the front of the Ranch and will powerwash it today in prep for pictures for Craiglist and Machinery Trader listings.
Beast is For Sale! The Beast is Running Fine and is For Sale. Just need to find someone who wants to work on her more than I do.
Heavy equipment on its side reminds me of my pulpwood cutting days. Take one JD 963 shear with 2 ~ 3 tall trees in the upper grapple, add high wind, and you have instant side panel damage and 50 gallons of fluid on the ground.
Loading one on a low boy with inexperienced operator and metal on metal makes for slipen and sliden and on it side it went! Fortunately, it has not gone over again! It is working better now than it has in the past two years!
I joined the forum today to get some information on steering/brake adjustments on a dry clutch JD 450 loader. Since I'm too cheap to buy a service manual, I'm hoping someone can talk me through getting the left side track to pull.
Good luck. I know nothing about JD loaders. After much pain and hands-on learning I know a little about old International 175B's.
The End of the Beast! The Beast is mine no more! I sold her to a fellow out of Dallas. She is in much better shape than when I bought her and I hope he has good luck with her. I will miss running her
Goldtrigger, It sorta mates me sad to see the Beast go, thanks for the great Thread, It helped encourage me to work hard and take of my machine, wosama931b
We had a lot of fun and pain working on the Beast. If I had more time, I would like to make a project of working on old iron like this. They are simple, effecient and powerful. If I ever get rich enough to have a toy again, I would like to find a 175c in a little better shape than the Beast and work it up like Boone has done his. First chore would be to build a shop on the ranch. Doing all the work out on the hill side was no fun at all!
Goldtrigger I've enjoyed your posts on the beast, if you ever get a little lonely for her I have the 250c just up the road.
250c, I'll remember that. Your bigger old iron would be a trip to run!
Hello guys. I need some help with my 175b loader. It does not have pushing power. I have to use in low range 1gear. When put in second gear the drive shaft to transmission stops turning. When at idle drive shaft turns. The torque converter preassure reads good on gauge. Any advice would be good. Same happens when in reverse. Operates in 1gear and any other gear shaft stops turning.
No help from me. Sorry, i know nothing about the tranny/ torque converter setup. My old Beast is long gone
Thanks. I really would like some help. I have allot of land to clear and a tractor that does not push.
Hi Tfphill Ist things first check the trans filters both the washable suction filter and the replaceable paper one. Tell me what pressure the gauge reads I think that is main clutch engagement pressure not torque converter feed pressure . next put the brake on and rev engine to high idle and then pull it into second gear the engine should drop 2 to3 hundred revs when you do this . try this and we will go from here regards Malcolm
Neighbor has a 175B that's been sitting for a while because the starter keeps getting full of oil. Has had the starter pulled and rebuilt at least 2 or 3 times, and when it fails - is full of oil. Any ideas what would be pushing oil into the starter? William
Long time ago and and long since I sold my Beast. My only guess would be something coming from the valve cover gasket or something from the torque converter. If it isn't running down from the valve cover and somehow infiltrating the starter, then it has to be coming from inside the bell housing. My guess then would be something like a leaking main seal or torque converter.
If Malcolm is still on the forum, he would surely know.
I can't remember if the bell-housing on the 175 is wet or dry. But if it is supposed to be dry, then what is likely happening is that the engine rear main seal is worn out or damaged and engine oil is getting into the bell-housing and over-pressuring it. The oil then forces it's way into the starter. You would notice a lot of black oil in the bell-housing when you remove the starter, and the oil in the starter would also be black. Two other possibilities: Either the transmission pump or the hydraulic pump are doing the same thing. That is, they are leaking past their seals and overfilling the bell-housing. If this were the case however, I believe you would see an over-filling of the engine oil as well when the other oils force their way past the rear main seal. These are the only way that oil can get into the starter that I'm aware of. Good Luck, and a merry Christmas!
One more thought. It's possible that the transmission or torque converter are leaking around their shaft seals too. The result would be the same, that is, their oil would over-pressure the starter seal and infiltrate the inner works.
On a power shift machine the torque housing/ bell housing has oil in it which gets dumped unless the line is plugged. Has nothing to do with the transmission seals as it is a separate housing from the transmission. I have been working on International and Dresser machinery for close to thirty years.- if that helps. It may be that the starter rebuild guy is not sealing it properly. Are you losing hydraulic fluid ?? Are you gaining engine oil??
Thank you for all the replies! Where would the drain line be located - how to clean/check? Starter guy said was rebuilt with new seals. He has not noticed any unusual fluid level changes other than typical hyd leaks. A bit difficult to get to the starter, 3/4" bolts on top and bottom hard to reach leaning into machine, have to use extensions and electrical tape to hold bolt in socket to start in hole - and I believe the starter had to be slid into the hole on a board, and pulled from above with a strap to hold in place to start bolts. William
More information... he said last time they cranked the 175B loader, after running about 5 minutes there was a stream of hyd oil coming out the end of the starter about the size of your little finger. If the drain line was stopped up, would that much oil build up? Is the housing a sump reservoir for a pump - or is there a seal blown somewhere in the housing? It would help if we had a basic hydraulic schematic of the machine, but at this point have no documentation. They ordered an operators manual today - looking for shop manual and parts manual. William
Hydraulic Oil Flow in an early 175C Hopefully, you can read the attachments shown above. They show the oil flow and some comments as well.
Sorry, one got turned upside down, maybe they will be of some help!