Hello, I recently purchased a used dozer. A Komatsu Dressta TD-12CXP. The person I bought it from told me it didn’t need any maintenance or PM this year & to just run it. After putting about 10 hours on it I decided to replace the fluid in the finals. The right side had only 3 gallons in it & left a little fur on the fill plug. The left side fluid looks creamy brown and a few small pieces of metal fell out of the drain plug. Both magnets had a bunch of metal fur on them on that side. I refilled with 85W-145 gear oil per my manual. I can’t tell anything is wrong from operating the machine. I am not a mechanic and don’t have a proper shop for repairs. Thoughts on how to proceed? Certainly don’t want to make small issue worse. Thanks for any advice.
Without knowing how old the oil is, it impossible to know if it is excessive or not. Id run it, check for leaks and in 50hrs, drain and sample and refill. If its dark or it has more metal flakes, give it a flush with diesel. Then change and sample again next service. Then I would consider pulling down if the trend continues.
In my modest opinion, the metal dust, (dust particles) in the magnet is very common to find in any gearcase. Actually if u buy a piece of equipment that does not have it, suspect, cause its cause they´ve been cleaned recently.... The other particles, are of worry, depending on size, as inside that case there is a Epcyclic stage composed of a panetary set and one sun gear and a ring gear, plus some cases also contain a primary reduction with a main gear sitting in the shaft gear, all this shafts are suported by heavy load bearings, That when fail they may shave off some gears teth, to me it looks a tip of a gear teeth, but in a picture is hard guess. it may also be something else. Having the oil and particles analized will tell u what they are and from where came from. Cost is negligeble, compared to the cost of repairing a final drive system. good luck
(3rd attachment) I was curious why the fluid on the left side is light brown versus the left? The left side was overfilled which seems puzzling. The darker fluid on the right seemed less viscous than the new 85W-140 gear oil I added to both but perhaps gear oil becomes less viscous over time. Is there a “go to” place to send oil samples for analysis? Should the finals need service, what are the “tell-tale” signs that I need to stop other than continuing to find pieces of metal through inspection or sending off a sample for analysis? My sense so far through checking fluids/visual inspection is that PMs were very lacking. On the plus side, the engine sounds & runs good with 3K hours after one rebuild & the UC looks good, at least from my novice experience. Thanks for any/all replies.
IMO, get old oil analized and those particles too, the analisis will say what kind of materiel was, bearings or shafts ... casing and so on. Depending on that its better to understand from where they came from.... i´m pretty sure u can open the finals casing from the planetary side, and once u open it either u find more pieces or u find nothing, either way that will make possible to inspect the satelites shaft and ring carrier. Analisis labs for that u ask the dealer in your region, or any other machinery dealer. even automotive truck shops can help u with it. I bough a machine with a seal leak in a differential planetary reduction , the old owner had it filled with grease... fortunatly it is still running.
From the big piece it looks like a gear is shelling out run it a wile and drain and check again
Very possible that water got into the drive case at some point. Drain and replace, then check again after maybe 50 or so hours of running.