During this last storm one of my guys was plowing with my l150. He pushed into the pile, heard a pop and now the left front wheel is locked up, wont roll. Any ballpark ideas what might cause this?
Does it have a magnetic drain plug on it..? If so try removing that (don't let the oil fall on the floor while doing so) and see what's stuck to it. Whatever it is it doesn't sound good.
It does have a magnetic drain plug. I will pull that tomorrow and see whats on it. I have to get it onto a low bed to get it back to my shop first.
That being the case I'd suggest to wait until you get it back to the shop before starting to pull plug(s). Sounds to me like a planetary assembly has grenaded. Does the wheel move, even a little, back and forth before it locks up..? That would be a sure sign of an exploded planetary - like the one below. That was locked up as well but would move an inch or so in each direction.
Yuck! It will chuck back and forth, maybe an inch or so.
Then expect something like those photos when you pull the plug out ...........
Yep what Nidge said
Whats a ballpark price for an equipment company to come out and replace the planetary?
Those components are getting harder to come by, if you have an L150 straight or even up to a *D*
I keep hearing that. When this machine went down, out came the 74 h90e.........
Ill have the drain plug out today and will post back some pics. Volvo is coming wed or thursday to take the planetary off, I already removed the fender, tire and blocked the machine up to save them some time.
Well you were only 14 or 16 bolts left from removing the whole hub by yourself. Drain the hub drain the Axle pull all the perimeter Allen screws sling it up and yank it out. Easy-peasy not much to removing them there is a little bit involved with reinstalling
I may have spoke too soon does this have dry disk brakes or wet disk brakes
Wet disk.
Not a big deal. Well, you have your dealer coming with the proper balance to pull it smoothly. Fingers crossed for parts availability.
Once i see it done, im sure i could do it myself. I think there is a little bonus to letting the dealer do a job here and there. Kinda helps when they at least remember your company name.
Agreed. Who is your dealer there, Malvese? Just curious
Hope your dealer is better then the one in Charlotte have a customer trying for months to get them out to check out a trans problem on a A40D they wont even give you a idea when they will come out and say they will call you then never do. Some say that you have to call them every day until they come out
Tyler equipment. I bought a used loader from them in 2011, great machine. On another note here is the two pics of my drain plug magnets. No chunks, just normal shavings. Machine has 11,300 on the clock.
Pics of the rh and lh drain plugs
I wouldn't call it normal, but not catastrophic. I'm guessing its gonna be more along the lines of the image Nige posted. Big pieces or piece. My hope is for a readily available part or component.
the oil still on the parts makes it a bit difficult to be certain but in my opinion those photos have got “catastrophic” written all over them. For a start one only one side has locked up yet both plugs are fairly similar. That tells me the debris has travelled right through the axle to the other side. I can see a few chunky bits sticking up out of the oil. I’d be pulling the other side and the diff as well if it was mine, even if only to clean & inspect.
Agree with Nige some of that looks big normally the metal on the plug is normally just a paste
Nige, if everyone performed maintenance the way they should, I agree, its catastrophic. . The reality, at least what I see, no one checks fluids til there's a problem. It was common for me to see black oil in a wet brake hub with lots of fuzz hanging off the plug. It's the chunky bits that make it scary.
It was catastrophic. Looks to me like the sun gear broke and in turn wiped out the bearing. The broken chunk of the sun gear has half shiny, half dull markings in the break. Im thinking this was broken in the loaders previous life.....
Were any other teeth of the ring gear or planets damaged? Will you be able to get away with one planet and bearing? Or are you tracking down leads for a complete hub?
So far the other sun gears look ok Planet gear looks ok. Looks like just one sun gear exploded. I found a used corner for 6k, but who knows if thats any better than the one i have..
Demand a warranty for that kinda dough . It's used, at least get 90 days to abuse and proof test.
Fatigue failure in a gear by the looks of it. It's somewhat lucky that it stayed as big lumps and didn't get ground to pulp. New oil in the axle should fix it without any more disassembly but you'll have to pay close attention to the mag plugs for a considerable time after installation. They will be picking up debirs from everywhere. Can you post some good close-up photos of the fracture faces please. The one photo you posted was not close enough to see anything on which to base an opinion.
It was always ingrained in me that the bearing preload is of the utmost importantance on anything with a planetary drive. Too much end play and the gearsets catch hell.
I have no experience on Volvos but it appears to me as though that bearings in those 3 planetary gears are not adjustable for preload.
I think he was saying the end play of the housing
No, no preload. Straight rollers on cast axles. Everything relies on close machining tolerances. To have only one fail was a financial blessing. As Nige mentioned, usually a failure of this sort results in a hub full of grey sludge and no salvageable parts. Unfortunately, to magnaflux the remaining planets would mean destructive disassembly. You have to destroy the bearings to get them off. I would strongly recommend having the others checked. One planet doesn't absorb all the shock load by itself . Odds are the others are compromised. If not, great. But I'd get them checked if it's a front line machine.
I will try to get a better closeup of the fracture faces. These bearings are non adjustable. The remaining sun gears have some play in them. At the very least i plan on changing all the bearings, and maybe changing the other two sun gears.
Boy it's kind of obvious who has actually worked on equipment before and who has never seen it in person. You be right on friend. Bob
Please elaborate.
Thank you Bob. Yes I was referring to the bearings that mount the hub. I operate a fleet of machines with hydrostatic drive and torque hubs on the wheel end. Any sign of paste on the magnets and they get disassembled and the bearings get adjusted. Helps to avoid drama like this next picture.
My father was a field serviceman for Caterpillar for decades before venturing off on his own. Sadly he’s no longer with us but the lessons learned stay forever. The important ones anyway.
The volvo shop disassembled the planetary in their shop. The long and short of it is that there was a shock load at some point causing the single planetary gear to break. Seeing that all the planetaries mesh at the same time we decided to change all of the planetary gears and bearings, as well as the seals and the larger bearings that carry the assembly. Parts, labor and air freight 8300.00. Let it snow!
Ouch! At least its behind you now
And the parts were available..... next question. What would you guys recommend for a wet disc brake/transaxle oil?
What's the mfg call out for? I ended up going with Mobilfluid 424 for some big deere wet brake axles, brake performance has been excellent.
Volvo calls for wb102, which is their wet brake axle fluid. Im just trying to get out from under the volvo tag where i can. I did a quick cross reference and the mobil 424 was a direct cross. What was the price like on the 424?
Where is that guy looking to buy the skid steer, that had a hard time believing how expensive these break downs can be?
I want to say it was 720 for a 55 gallon drum but we needed 60 gallons or so, I'd guess $65 for a 5 gallon pail, no drum deposit etc.
I ran Deere Hygard in my L70E machines' axles for over 10 years. Never an issue. Moreover, I run Deere Hygard in all of my loader axles (Cat, Deere, Komatsu).
I called the local oil distributor and they verified that mobil 424 is the way to go. 62 bucks for a 5 gallon pail. not bad versus the 170 for the volvo fluid, which is most likely made by mobil…...
424 has the same properties as WB101. Same drain interval. WB102 doubles your drain interval. Hope that helps.
Maybe id be better off springing for the volvo fluid and save time and money on the change interval.
2k vs 1k drain . It kinda makes sense.
The old salts would likely suggest letting oil sampling tell you when to drain vs a clock because of how much contamination is introduced with a complete fluid change.
Absolutely. New oil ain’t “clean”, especially when it comes out of 55-gall drums. Oil sampling could indicate the need for 2000-hour oil changes even with the so-called 1000-hour oil.