2005 D6N. 13k hours on the clock. Latest oil sample says elevated particle count, continue to monitor and consider kidney loop to clean up oil. Machine is having an intermittent trans output speed sensor fault. Techs have determined that it's not external harness, likely sensor or internal harness. Trans has to be pulled to replace either. $5000 for R/R trans, internal harness, and both senders. Do I pull the trigger and have it done, or let it ride until the senders fail completely? Do you pull and put back in a 13,000 hour transmission? What a pisser. Why can't these manufacturers design in access for these chicken**** electrical components that are destined to fail after the first start???
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Can't even provide prefix How can I search if there are only 20 different prefix, albeit, several are mucho newer than 2006.
Not looking to fix anything currently. Looking on opinions on pulling trans, replacing senders, and reinstalling original trans without rebuilding is worth the risk. IF the oil cleans up. No metal or dirt in oil sample, just contamination that suggests clutch material.
Tough call. I've only done one D6N transmission but would it actually need to come all the way out to replace the harness/sensors? Don't they just slide out a few feet from the rear housing on sliders?
Well, don't you have to do the same prep work to slide it back as you would to completely separate it from the tractor? I don't know. Cat quoted $5000 to replace the senders and harness. I've usually trusted their numbers, but? Serial is ALY01509
This an oval track machine isn't it?
D6N? Not hardly.
In answer to your question about building something to last see below it is all about the Benjamins! All of the large conglomerate manufactures learned decades ago that if they design their machines/products so they last to long they cannot gets the thousands out of all of us that it takes to repair these machines. Just like refrigerators, light blubs, etc. etc. If you remember way back in the day lights bulbs, fridges, etc would last 20 or 30 years. Now if you get 4 or 5 years out of a fridge you are very lucky. It is all about the $$$$$$
I must be thinking about the D5 then. I've been told by a good dealer field wrench that the sensors can be changed in about a day by someone who has done them before. They said figure three days or less for someone who is able but never done one before. Especially if there is nothing on the back of the tractor.
If I owned a machine like that and I assume you are making a living with it, I think you would be better to do the new or rebuilt trans. If you were like me just playing around my own land with it then I would go the cheapest way with it. When you are earning your lively hood with it you have to look at it from the long range view and consider down time as being very costly to your business. Just my opinion, but you know opinions are elbows everyone has at least 2 of them!
There is a reason there are two output speed sensors, and it's for cases just like this one. If one sensor fails the transmission will continue happily on its merry way working on the other one. TBH if it was mine I would just carry on running it as it is. Probably somewhere around 16k the transmission will be coming out for overhaul anyway. Replace the sensors and the internal harness then.
That was my thoughts exactly though I did not explain it as well as Nige did. I didn't know anything about the double sensors, but what I meant to say was run it as long as it works and then do the full rebuild or replacement. So it looks like judging from Nige's post I was thinking in line with a more experienced H.E. person. Cool! B-Crazy
Fix before failure is always the most cost effective way to handle components. Bearings and seals are a small cost compared to multiple gears, shafts and possibly case elements. When I worked for the Cat dealer, the sales forces were always trying to push the 12,000 hour drive train rebuilds. The service departments would talk about machines run to 20K hours with the qualifier that there wasn't anything left to rebuild. If you have the time and money to do the overhaul now, why wait and risk a failure in the middle of a season?
That's why I'm strongly leaning towards Nige's suggestion to run a clean-up filter for 50 hours, resample, and make the call at that point. I have more snow to move, so if I put another 100 hours on it and the oil doesn't get better, the only path is get the trans rebuilt before spring.
I think you are making a reasonable informed decision. Good Luck
I would not pull it just to do the sensors and harness especially when it comes back out again for rebuild that harness and sensors will get replaced automatically.
So, as it goes, I find that the transmission already has a 5 micron filter on it. 225-4118. I'm going to do a fluid change, run it a few hours to get it good and hot, then dump it again, check magnetic strainer, and put it to work. I'll sample it after I run it for a day, and then again at about 100 hours. I'll post the samples as I get them.
Do you know when the oil was last changed and/or sampled or is the machine fairly new to you? I think your plan to follow Nige's suggestion is good. Pushing snow I don't think is as stressful on the transmission as dirt work. 100 hours on new oil if it's operating fine (other than an elavated level in the oil sample) shouldn't cause catastrophic failure.
Post photos of whatever you find in the suction screen, both metallic and non-metallic. It might give some clues.
Is the 225-4118 considered a clean-up filter, Nige? The filter has about 300 hours on it. I did come to find out that these guys are running the trans oil to 1500 hours or more, depending on oil samples. This oil has about 1200 on it, no idea of calendar time, haven't been able to get that info yet. They are running Mobil HD30. Part of me wants to believe the machine was traded because of this sample.
New machine. I don't have a kidney loop system, so I'm going to do a pump and dump. I wonder if 20 gallons would be enough for the first flush to get 90% of the old oil out? Fill 20, start it, move it back and forth a few feet in each gear, stop and drain it out? Before anyone gets their panties wadded up, I feel that $500 worth of oil is well worth it if it cleans the system up.
By its 5-micron rating 225-4118 would be considered a cleanout filter if it was installed in a system that normally used say a 15-micron filter. As it is, because it's the only part number available for that system it's considered a "service filter", but either way it will act like a cleanout filter. One thing you need to make sure is that the plugged filter warning system is working correctly. Mobiltrans HD30 is a good oil. I have plenty of experience of it in tractors and it works well. If the previous owners were running the powertrain oil to that number of hours (even based on sample results) TBH I'd say get the oil well hot, dump the whole lot right now, pull & inspect the magnetic screen, and change the filter. Run it 50 hours and resample, then ditto at 100 hours. I wouldn't do a 2nd oil change until I'd seen the results of the samples. IMO your idea of moving the machine around a bit after the 1st oil change then dumping it again isn't really going to see the oil hot enough to get best results.
That's why I asked if you think 20 gallons is enough to circulate through the system and push a good amount of the dirty **** into the sump. Then, put the full amount (maybe 5 gallons less) and run it for a few hours to get it good and hot, then dump again. I realize this is a bit unconventional, but with the absence of a better filter, and knowing it has a 5 micron on already, I'm willing to sacrifice this first dump to get the system cleaned up.
So long as there is enough oil in the system so that it is at least visible right on the bottom of the dipstick when the machine is idling in neutral I think your idea will probably work. Any less than that there is a possibility of the pump cavitating if the oil does not return fast enough to the transmission housing, especially if the oil is relatively-speaking cold. Full system capacity is listed as approximately 38 gallons.
Last I checked, an SOS is cheaper than a gallon of oil... that tells me what I'd do.
Right now, there is nothing more to be gained from a sample. The oil is ****, the compartment needs to be cleaned up. I don't have a kidney loop, there are no other filters available. I INTEND to resample after 50 hours. The problem is getting this thing cleaned up. If someone told me that one change would accomplish that, I'd still do two. $1000 worth of oil if it gets another 3000 hours out of this tranny is peanuts in the grand scheme of things.
AND, if I waste $1000 on oil, so be it. It's going to cost around $23k to get this transmission rebuilt.
"elevated" is not an emergency in my mind. "Urgent" on a new machine isn't always an emergency either, depending. You just don't have the sample history on the oil to guess what's going on. A new used machine like that, I'd run it several hours then drain the oil hot, if there was debris in the bottom of the case, like reach it with a finger and see it, then I might flush it with diesel if the case is open enough that it would absolutely all drain, or do 20 gallons like you said, but enough oil that it will run, then a few minutes at least? Another full fill and dump right away is what I wouldn't do, it went 1,200 hours on the last oil, I'd test it and change accordingly. Or rig up a bypass filter, I'm sure there's ways to do that temporarily, either with a rigged up electric pump, or off the hydraulics, even a return filter while you're working. $1,000 new oil, and/or $5,000 for the sensors, makes $23 seem cheap for a transmission rebuild, to me. But you don't know you need that yet.
Can you rent a filter cart? I rented one for about $125cad. from a hyd. shop and the filters were about $90can. each. It used 2 filters. The Donaldson filters were about a foot long. I only bought one new filter because they said the other one had only ran through about 10 gallons of new oil. I think the filters went down as low as 2 micron. Water wasn't an issue and I don't think it is in your case either. I drained the old oil and pumped the new oil in with the filter cart. I bought a small brass 1" NPT ball valve at Home Depot to thread into the drain hole on the hyd. tank. The filter cart pumped oil faster than the tank drained and I didn't want to keep turning it on and off. I'd fill a pail and then pump it back in the tank and repeat several times. I think you could put new oil in and run the machine a bit to circulate it and then drain it and pump it back through the filter cart a few times. Would maybe cost a little more than 2 oil changes but only need to buy 1 oil quantity and could drain and filter it several times to clean everything out better than just 2 oil changes.
I see the outfit Dakota Fluid Power that has a bunch of locations in your neck of the woods. Give them a call and see if they have a cart for rent.