Happened again ad PTO countershaft ?

[Clint S]

Well it happened again.
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/farmtrac/195480-pinion-ring-gear-replacement.html
Do not know why it was a brand new ring and pinion. New bolts and lock washers and torqued them down. The Red Loctite I used was in my cabinet in the winter so maybe it was bad from freezing or it was old.


Carrier bolts cam loose toasting the bearing. This time I and going to weld a piece of stock between the bolt heads vertically to keep them from turning. Thing is a bolt wedged between the the PTO shaft and housing shearing the little nub off the PTO countershaft that lines everything up. Does the shaft pull out or will gears fall if I remove. The manual is sketchy on this.

Any ideas other than welding the piece of stock or why the bolts keep coming loose.

 

[Ernie Alabama]

You might try replacing the bolts with studs and use castle nuts and drilling the studs for cotter pins with the nuts torqued.

 

[Clint S]

You might try replacing the bolts with studs and use castle nuts and drilling the studs for cotter pins with the nuts torqued.

Thought about studs, but what would keep them from working their way out. Isn't a bolt for all intense purposes a stud with nut on the end of it.

 

[Ernie Alabama]

Good point. Back when I was building machinery, we would wire critical fasteners. We would drill the bolt heads and run a stainless steel wire through the holes and twist the ends together. A lot of work, to be sure, but though the bolts could back out a tad, they could never back out more than a fraction of a turn.
If you have an industrial supply company nearby, they sell bolts (usually socket head cap screws) with a nylon patch on the threads that will keep a bolt from backing out.

 

[boomer1025]

Clint, why not spot weld the nuts to the bolts after you have eveything torqued to spec's.
As to why they came loose again, torque wrench out of calibration, soft bolts, or the threads weren't clean when the loctite was applied. Loctite makes a cleaner & primer for use with there products. I've always used brake clean to clean stuff and never had any problems with Loctite. The holes in the carrier arn't wore from the bolts coming loose are they?

 

[Clint S]

Clint, why not spot weld the nuts to the bolts after you have eveything torqued to spec's.
As to why they came loose again, torque wrench out of calibration, soft bolts, or the threads weren't clean when the loctite was applied. Loctite makes a cleaner & primer for use with there products. I've always used brake clean to clean stuff and never had any problems with Loctite. The holes in the carrier arn't wore from the bolts coming loose are they?

Could be oil was left on the threads as I really did not clean them. Although I have not calibrated my wrench ever, I have torqued enough things to know that the bolts were tight and the torque was not out of line with the amount of pressure I was putting on the wrench.

There are no nuts just a 9/16 bolt. I thought about the aircraft style bolt with the wire , but instead a piece of flat stock welded between the heads of bolts on each side will hopefully work. I would tack them right to the case, but it is cast and I am afraid the weld will not stick.

They threads were not wore the first time because I caught it quickly and only 1 came out and 3 were loose. I did run a chaser through too. I did loose a couple of threads from 2 of the holes this time, but still have over an inch of threads. I torqued a bolt in and it tightened fine. No way to really fix threads without total disassembly of the rear and taking it to a machine shop as I do not feel confident in drilling and tapping new holes and getting them straight. My friend who is a machinist said there were plenty of threads left for a good torque and he would not bother. There is also an extra threaded hole that I can put another bolt in to make 5 instead of 4