Good morning everyone, My dilemma, frozen steering clutches on a John Deere 450-B bulldozer. I am asking for any suggestions, short of removing them, to free them up. It appears to be the result of sitting and not a mechanical failure, the machine moves forward and reverse with no problem and has plenty of power. Thanks, Bob McCloskey
Are the actuators working? I mean can you see the clutch linkage moving and the power boosters are helping? I think the "B"s were dry and they did like to rust together if left to sit. If you want to have the slimmest chance of reusing the friction plates yank them apart and try to separate the stack, buff everything with scotchbrite disks or fine sanding, use a face mask at least if not a respirator. May have to just replace all the frictions and steels if they're ugly. I have seen guys break them loose by ramming and jamming with the levers pulled, but nine times out of ten at least one of the friction plates will strip the drive teeth off because they don't all break free at once. Last man standing takes all the torque and the drive teeth shear off before the rust lets go. Then you gotta tear into them anyway. YMMV
I have heard to fill and then drain the housing with kerosene to try and get them moving ...I dont know the exact procedure but its gota be easier than tearing it all apart..
I had some 350 clutches that were stuck, I pulled back both levers and it'd drive forward all over the place, I started with letting it warm up and then drive it back and forth, then while driving, stab the brake now and again, eventually one side broke free, then I could let it motor around in a circle and dab at the brake again and after about an hour, the second side broke free.
i would definitely NOT fill the housing with kerosene or anything else. did you remove the drain plugs to see if housings were full of water? this is usually the culprit. leave the plugs out if you are not going to run it in deep water. hold the levers back and ride it around.... alot of times they will come loose. water in the housings causes the discs to swell up. they are kinda fussy about clutch pack thickness. when they are assembled there is a height gauge that must be used to adjust the pressure plate finger height. hope this helps
Normally they rust from sitting and rain water. If you keep them tarped from the stack to the back of the tank, no water gets in. My 450B is back at the dealer for more work on the steering clutches. They put in steering clutches and an undercarriage on a few dozen hours ago, and the left side has already failed. Time for rework. The tractor has to come almost apart to fix the clutches, seat/fuel tank/hydraulic need to come off, plus the tracks. Not a home job for the timid, or at least without a good crane. Howard
I'm working on another one of these right now with both sides frozen, the guy I got it from said he had one side sort of working by pulling real hard.... well once I got inside I saw what pulling real hard does(again)... it bent the actuator parts have seen quite a few of these frozen up and like hethind says water gets in there and rusts them up especially if they don't do a good job sealing the top plates up and replace the lever seals and boots because water will always get in where you don't want it and cause problems down the road. Thinking about trying some of the newer design clutches and plates that aren't supposed seize up... has anyone else had experience with these? I know they cost a bit more.
why not use kerosene? its a very thin lubricant, just like diesel...it will break up the rust on the clutches, no fire hazzard...
I agree, Diesel fuel also has been used to clean out clutch housings and to free up clutches for years. Another thing that will help is to loosen the adjusters as far as you can. Good luck as it is still a crap shoot weither they come loose or not.
these are dry clutches. they will absorb water/oil and swell, and also will change the drag coefficient. once they are soaked with oil i'm sure you will be changing them. fill em with fuel oil and let us know how you make out. just sayin