i changed the oil in my final drives on a 06 takeuchi tl140 with 700 hours. this was the second time i changed oil. old oil came out frothy...with air bubbles. and the old oil had lot of metal "glitter" in it. i installed new oil and ran for a bit and drained it out, and replaced with new oil. ran another few hours and replaced oil again. still see "glitter" in the drained oil. should i be concerned? running 75w-90 oil. would thicker oil provide more protection?
Glitter can be misleading without an oil test, could be left over anti-sieze or actual wear metal, I have to drain my loader axles and know there will be some debris, my plan is to drain them hot, run it all through a filter a few times and then put it back in. Going for removal of 95% of all the trash. I removed handfuls before and finished up with a 4x diesel rinse but I know there will be junk. Foamed up and agitated is good, means it'll mix up all the stuff that's lingering around.
i dont see where anti seize would come from, and why it would still be around after several oil changes. how hard is it to remove the hub cover to inspect the gears and bearings? can i do it without removing the track/sprocket?
The hub cover can be removed without stripping anything else but be very very carefull when reassembling. If it's the type of cover that's retained with a wire loop, there is a ball bearing on the end of the sun gear shaft that can fall out. You'll never know until you move the machine and bingo you will have more steel than you know what to with. If you change the oil every time you do an engine service it should be OK. Changing to a synthetic oil may give a better life span.If you are super concerned start doing oil sampling. It will tell you if the problem gets worse- more parts per million.
there were 2 different drive motors used, right? earlier models had the smaller drive motor you're talking about, which i believe the smaller tl130 machines use also?? like this? anyways, i have this style drive. so if i remove this cover, nothing will fall out? will i need a new seal? i guess part of the reason i'm concerned is that one of the drive motors was replaced under warranty when the machine was almost new. dealer said there was a bearing clearance issue problem with the drive motors at the time. i'm also not fond of the 500 hour hub oil change intervals. i will change more frequently. i'll change the oil again soon to see if the metal glitter is better or worse. oh and i'm familiar with lots of metal! i had a jcb axle where some snap rings inside the hubs let go and the center drive gear ground against the inside hub cover. i ended up machining the snap ring grooves deeper and cleaned things up and no issues since.
Now, one thing I like to do on non-filtered or even filtered oil. Look at your inspection plug if its wet when in operation, see if there's clearance between the plug and moving parts, if so, find some small neodymium magnets smaller than the diameter of the plug threads by a bit, drill or machine a small pocket in the plug and epoxy in a small magnet, this will give you some fantastic particle inspection capabilities.
I like to flush out the final drives with lots of diesel fluid, followed by some gear oil, then fill with fresh gear oil.
I changed the oil last year. There's maybe 100 hours max on this oil. Almost 1000 hours on machine. I just drained it. See the video and tell me what you think.
I would pop that cover off of there and check the bearings and gears. Sure looks like something is about to come apart.
I assume just take off the bolts on the cover? What type of seal is behind it, and can it be reused? Are there planetary rebuild kits?
Looks like a slow grind to me. There are two schools of thought on this. What little I've done with skid steers showed that most final drives are throw aways when problems come up. I would suggest getting a parts book and then pricing out the parts that wear. Thrust washers for the gears in the planet carrier, main seal, thrust bearings on the main hub and the seals. Then price out a complete final. You might be better off with the complete final and then run the one on the machine till it locks up.
So, either plan to buy new finals, or send it to ritchie brothers? Lol How much do these finals cost? Best place to buy finals or parts for them?
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There is a weird pattern on the teeth of the outer gears. And those outer gears wore the housing on each side a little bit. Most everything else looks fine.
Ok. Looked a little closer, and the outer housing teeth are worn a little. Slightly pitted.
At this point, I think I may just put it back together and try to run a good oil, instead of just regular store bought gear oil. What if I use cat fdao oil? Or is there anything better?
You might get a parts diagram of the monster and see if there are any thrust washers that are supposed to be between the planet gear carrier plate. You should not have those kinds of wear marks on that plate on the forth photo and the seventh photo.
No thrust washers shown in the service or parts manual.
Here's a couple more pics zoomed in. The outer ring gear shows the most wear.
Hard to tell from the photo (the last one in Post #14) but is that bearing race pitted.?
It's just gear oil. It looks like water droplets though.
So I put some large fishing magnets on the inside of the front covers. They are super strong and don't budge. A drive specialist said the gears don't look too bad. Just to change the fluid more frequently. And i came across CAT FDAO which caterpillar designed strictly for planetary gears. It's used in their heavy mining trucks etc. Exceeds TO4 oil. I didn't want to put standard store bought 80w-90 or similar, since it didn't protect much. I'll update next year some time when I change the fluid, and see if the magnets worked.
FDAO will likely be too heavy for this application. In a mining truck application the truck transmission is limited to 3rd speed when the oil is “cold” (less than 150DegF) because of the borderline lubrication properties of the oil at lower temperatures than that. Also bear in mind that mining trucks generally work 24/7 so this is not a major problem unless the truck spends an extended period on the shop. They normally stay warm for months on end. Personally I’d suggest you would be better off with an SAE 50 TO-4 oil in your application.
I'm sold on their literature. Lol. Factory fill for their large dozers too. When I use my machine, I mainly use it for backfilling, moving dirt, and tracking long distances. So I use it hard. Sae 90 gear oil is equivalent to a sae 50 oil. So this being sae 60, shouldn't be much thicker. Guy at cat dealer was saying they use 85w-140 in the compact track loaders. How does that compare in thickness?
Not exactly. It's more equivalent to something around an SAE40 as a baseline. SAE 50 TO-4 oil viscosity @ 40 DegC is about 195 cSt. The same oil in an SAE 60 is 340 cSt @ 40 DegC - almost double. The figures below are for Mobil but all other brands will be within less than a couple of % of these number. The difference in the 85W-140 is that it's a multigrade and when it's cold it will behave like an 85W oil, or somewhat akin to an SAE 30. Multigrade is an option that should be considered when running into the performance limitations of a high-viscosity oil during the critical cold starup & warm-up phases of machine operation. Cat are talking about FDAO being factory-fill on machines that not only are many orders of magnitude larger than your track loader but also run 24/7 and therefore are rarely subject to cold starts like your machine will be every working day. As I mentioned before FDAO has some major caveats regarding operation on cold machine startup . I've worked with dealers and on job sites that have used FDAO since it was first introduced back somewhere around 2004. Believe me when I tell you that IMHO it's not the right oil for your final drives. As a matter of interest what type & brand of oil are you using right now.?
I have used mobil 1 75w-90, mystik 80w-90, and last time used lucas 80w-90 and 85w140 mixed 50/50 to increase viscosity. And every time I got flakes in the oil. So that's why I want to try something different.
My suggestion would be to go with a name brand 85W-140 and see where that gets you, especially now that you have torn into the finals and cleaned both of them internally.
So from a quick search, the FDAO is almost identical in viscosity to a 85w-140 at 40c. But I don't see much info on cold weather flow. Maybe I should stick a cup of oil in the fridge and see if it gels up! Lol
I would do a used oil analysis on the old oil. Looks like oil breakdown to me. You should not see bubbles in the oil. Aeration of the oil will reduce lubrication. Replace worn parts and use a high quality synthetic gear lube. I use the Amsoil 110 wt. gear lube in my final drives and when I change it, the color is a little darker than new.
Did you see the video I posted in this thread? Wasn't much bubbles this time, but lot of metal. I've used mobil1 gear oil and lucas synthetic, and I believe valvoline synthetic once. Always metal coming out. I put about an hour on this latest oil. Cat fdao. The magnet is working great. Oil is clear. Will change and check again maybe in the spring.
Good news, Keep a close eye on it. When gear teeth begin to gall, it usually continues due to the rough surface created in the initial failure.
Well it's been about 100 hours since I filled with cat fdao oil, and installed the magnets. Old oil came out clean like new, some bubbles as expected. And a little metal on the magnet. The magnets work excellent. Still getting a little metal wear, but it's very fine particles, and at least it's not suspended in the oil now.
Wondering how this oil is holding up to cold temps? What's the coldest this has been exposed to? Debating on grabbing a pail but I see temps below freezing almost all winter
From a quick search, the cold weather pour point of sae 90 is 1 degree F. The pour point of FDAO is 5 degrees F. Not much of a difference. Plus if the oil is thick when cold, just mashing it around trying to get it moving, should generate some heat to thin it down and flow better. But then again, I've heard guys filling leaking planetaries with grease, and having it last a long time. So I wouldn't be worried about cold weather.
Also know a guy that has a Hitachi 200 with grease in his planetary for a few years now. Still runs every day for now. Simon C
How's it holding up? Have you taken the cover off and looked at the outer ring gear again? Still recommend the FDAO?