Well here I go again with another project. I think this is project # 3982 LOL. Anyhow made a purchase from a local block manufacturing plant that was getting rid of their back row equipment. Picked up two hyster forklifts, mack dump truck and a John Deere 544B wheel loader. The Rubber tire loader is what I am most excited about as I have always wanted one. Ok so I need to move it out of their lot and get it to my location. I went down today and put new battery cables on it and did all the oil, coolant air filter and other necessary checks you would do when you try and start a derelict piece of equipment that's been setting for years. The story we had gotten is it was being used and working into a pile when it just felt like something gave way int it all stopped. I mean everything. Steering, hydraulics and transmission. it was then relegated to the weed patch to await my arrival. So today after fighting the wasps armed with cans of wasp spray and worrying about some rather large snake skins under the machine I managed to get the battery cables changed and a battery installed. Also had to change the key switch as the keys had long been lost. after pulling the inlet line to fuel pump and priming up fuel to pump with hand lever on supply pump we were ready to give er a crank. after a fair amount of cranking we had to bleed the injector lines and whammo off and running. It spit the usual amount of rust out the exhaust causing a rain of rust chunks but other than that it ran pretty fair for something setting so long and did not smoke at all. But just like previous owner said no gears hyd or steering. Oh also we tried dumping some coolant in radiator to find a serious leak in radiator bottom where the side frame tore loose from the tank. ERRG more work LOL. While looking at the whole thing while it was running I noticed the shaft from the back of the engine was spinning pretty lazily and sometimes would just stop. since the torque converter is in the trans this seemed odd to me. We packed up to go to Deere dealer to get some advice. I was not wanting to go and was sure we would only get some pimple faced kid that dont his ass from a hole in the ground to talk to. My buddy insisted so reluctantly we headed on over. Oh well at least it was air conditioned as it was getting rather warm. Well I am glad we di go as we found a fellow that was in his 60s and had been working on Deere for a very long time. when I explained the symptoms and the drive shaft situation he knew right away what was wrong with this machine. He was very happy to explain and even printed out for us the part of the service manual and parts manual we needed. Turns out there are some rubber isolator bushings in the housing that is on the output side of the engine that absorbs vibration and shock. It is not uncommon for these to tear loose and then you have no power coupling from engine to tranny. This all totally fits with what the previous owner has told us as when these fail you have no power to anything! It looks like its going to be a chore to change these but it wont be as bad as having to tear into a tranny. Anyhow has any of you ever encountered this problem on a 544B?
Very common failure on the 544 and 644 that I know of, I have done both... you do NOT want to do this repair on a 644! I have successfully changed out the 544B biscuits before lunch, but then I was in my thirties and ate raw hindquarters of beef for lunch. Worst part of the whole deal usually is scraping all that black goo and gunk from where the old rubbers disintegrated out of the drive plate so you can install the new rubbers. There's an I think ball bearing the output shaft rides in, since you're in that far replace it or at least make sure it feels like it's new. And of course inspect the U-joints and both splined yokes, I always used some moly grease on them, especially the slip end. Have fun!
Someone else here said of those loaders that they were a transmission with a big steel box built around it (the rest of the loader). +1 what lantraxco wrote, petrified rubber and rubber goo stinks.
Hey Lantrax thanks for the reply. It looks that all must come out from removing the seat and accessing it through that opening from inside the cab. Thats not gona be fun for my large old decrepit arse LOL. Is there any way to temporarily pin that drive together so I can get it loaded on a trailer and get it to my shop? any thoughts or ideas on that? as it sets its gona be hard as heck to move as nothing at all works. Not that I cant deal with it but its just makes it all a harder job
The 544's I worked on were all open canopy, so that will slow you down, and I think the heater might be an issue as well, not sure. No, if you were far enough into it to haywire something together, you might as well just fix it in place. One suggestion though you might try, you see the hydraulic pump actually runs off the fan end of the crankshaft, but it get's it's charge oil from the transmission, so no transmission input spin, no charge oil. You mentioned the shaft was turning some, if you leave the transmission in neutral and give her about half throttle, see if there's enough friction from rubber chunks in there to spin up the shaft a bit after a few seconds... that should give you a little oil to the hydraulic pump. Then try to slowly tilt the bucket back and then lift the loader enough so the machine can at least be pushed or pulled, you might be able to get it loaded that way. Might have a little steering too if you get lucky. YMMV
That's about the size of it, LOL! I was not a fan of the early 644's, but the 544B's were amazingly tough little loaders.
Well it was a long hard day but I managed to get the thing dug out of all the junk that was piled around it and up on the trailer and home. I took my 1973 ford 4500 backhoe to move the machine and had my doubts that this hoe could get that machine up on the trailer. It actually did very well. I was honestly more frustrated at my ground man that couldn't understand how to run a chain or what my instructions were and then just wanted to argue with me 90% of the time! Some times you really do wish you could be in two places at once. So once I got it out in the open and lined up with the trailer I installed the lock that keeps it from articulating and shot it right up on the trailer one shot no problem. I think now the plan is to get it off the trailer and up by the shop. After looking at it I think I may pull the battery box assembly on the LH side of the machine as well as the seat. I think this will give me ample clearance for my ample frame to be able to lean into it and remove what I need. I know that sounds like alot of extra work but for a big guy like me I just dont see any other way to wedge myself far enough back to get it all out. Plus my back just wont take that kind of contortions anymore. I dont know I may be crazy but that's the though. Plus it will give me much better access to do some steam washing with the Hotsy. Any thoughts on that?
Good job on getting it moved! I don't remember well enough to say if pulling the battery box will help, but as you say it will be helpful for cleaning. Of course the bottom half of the bolt circle will be the hard part. On the drive plate that's bolted to the flywheel you can rotate the engine and do all of those bolts at the top.