2320 hydro drive shaft just snapped off !!!

[bill1369]

2320: drive shaft from engine to hydro motor just snapped off !!!

Hi Guys,

Wanted to share a sad day yesterday....While I was dragging my horse riding ring last night (VERY low stress on the tractor) I heard this weird sound underneath the machine. Turned it off and looked underneath....saw nothing weird. Started it back up and BANG....I shut it down immediately and looked underneath again. And the drive shaft spline is laying on the ground....completely sheared off. OMG!

Plus I am 6 months out of warranty.

I pulled the tractor out of the riding ring with my truck and now it sits waiting for my tractor mechanic friend to come and look at it......but I have a bad feeling about this.

I am going to have my mechanic friend look at it, but I also need to talk with the dealer and see if there is anything they can do about this very premature drive train failure.

Took some pictures and you can see that it completing sheared off. The u-joint is destroyed too.... The shaft that sheared in half is part 52 in the picture from JDPARTS.

I have done some searching and haven't found anyone report this type of failure.

 

[Gizmo2]

I would definitely do some inquiries at the dealer.

 

[radioman]

Ouch! that hurts just to look. Looks like a possible stress fracture of u joint ?

 

[hanson1999]

that don't look good....that housing is busted too, where the snap ring is supposed to be seated.

Hopefully it is just the front cover of the rearend that you can buy to fix that?? little hard to tell by your pics....

 

[Wacky]

Did something lock up inside the housing?

 

[bill1369]

Little more background: Bought tractor new and it is 2.5 years old with close to 700 Hrs. I take care of it and keep up with the maintenance.

I am going to drive to the dealer in the morning and show them the pics on my laptop. Hopefully they can work with me on this because it doesn't look like a quick/easy/cheap fix.

hanson1999:
Looking at JDPARTS, that housing that you see busted I don't think is a cover....I think that is part of the entire housing. I would guess the entire housing needs to be replaced.

Wacky:
I don't know if anything locked up inside the housing. It was very sudden. It is not like the tractor was degrading over time.....it was running fine until that moment. It was so loud it sounded like a bomb went off, my wife heard it and came to make sure I was OK.

 

[kuboman]

I'll bet the initial failure was the u-joint which finally took out the shaft.

 

[diesel466]

it looks like the u-joint has been bad for some time. Most deeres have a 3 year powertrain warranty.I just read the warranty and it says external drivelines are not covered ! Good luck

 

[RoyJackson]

I'm assuming that's the drive shaft to the front axle.
If that assumption is correct:
Were you in 4WD when this happened?
Have you replaced one or more tires since you bought the tractor?

This is a guess, but I'm wondering if the front axle may have been binding, and the drive shaft is what let go.

 

[/pine]

...I heard this weird sound underneath the machine. Turned it off and looked underneath....saw nothing weird. Started it back up and BANG...

Something was going on before the "bang"