L4350 Clutch job

[MaltbyMower]

My clutch rusted out on my L4350 MDT kubota. I split the tractor, cleaned the rust and had my local kubota deal set my clutch up on their clutch table. Got the tractor back together and everything seemed to be working great, until I tried my brush hog. PTO clutch was totally slipping. If I reved the tractor, I could get it to move but that is it. Do you think they set my clutch up incorrectly? They painted two bolts on my clutch pack and said these are the only two bolts to loosen to separate the clutch pack from the flywheel. After removing those two, the clutch was firmly stuck to the flywheel. Once I removed the other 2, they came apart. Did I remove the wrong bolts?
Now I'm stuck. The dealership says its $1600 to split the tractor. That seems rediculous. I split it myself with a little help from my father in 3 hours and I'm a computer nerd! If I split the tractor, have them set it up and put it back in, there is no guarantee that it'll work. I just have a hard time paying the $1600. So, in summary, do you think they incorrectly set up the clutch or I loosened too many bolts?
Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[rbargeron]

Does this tractor have the EC (ever clutch) or is it the dry 2-plate type?

Sent you a PM.

 

[_RaT_]

Why did I suspect you would be here Dick? I forgot, did they put the ever clutch on that model? I still have the brochure on the 3 models, the L4350/L4850/L5450 and it only show EC on the latter two.

 

[rbargeron]

Good morning Rat !!

I guess the term "one-trick pony" applies - if the model number is Lxx50 I usually perk up. My old brochure mentions that the EC was a "factory option" on the L4350.

But I may not know enough to help here - on 2-stage clutches problems arise when the drive-wheels plate gets worn and adjusted linkage travel is no longer enough to disengage the pto. But on rigs with the Ever Clutch, the hydraulic oil packs take the place of the drive-wheels plate. Then only the pto has a clutch plate. So simple linkage adjustment should restore the pto. Maybe when the tractor went back together the pto engagement linkage got hung up somewhere?

 

[MaltbyMower]

Thank you all for the replies.

This is technically a two stage dry clutch. I "invested" in the manual. After I finished putting the tractor together the first time, I noticed that there is a section for the L4350 in the back which has all the info specific to my tractor. While I was working on the clutch I couldn’t understand why they didn’t have my clutch listed. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

I believe that the PTO clutch is barely engaging. When I engage the PTO, and rev up the tractor, it starts to move the drive line to the brush hog but will not get it up to speed. From this I can assume, the PTO linkage is working and the belville washers are not putting enough pressure on the clutch. I talked to the dealership and asked if I can set the clutch up on the tractor. They said sure, can any one confirm?

I think my plan on action will be to split the tractor again tonight. I'll remove the clutch pack and the flywheel and reassemble them off the tractor. I'll mount them on my drill press and chuck up a sanding wheel that is the same size as the throw out bearing. Now I should be able to simulate the clutch engaging by lowering my drill (obviously turned off /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif). I'll cut a flat piece of steel just to the right size so that it will fit inside the PTO clutch hole, where the spline goes, in between two splines. This will allow me to turn the PTO clutch. I'll weld a rod onto the piece of plate steel so that it will drop through the hole in my drill press stand. A T-handle welded on the rod will help with some leverage. Next, I will just adjust the three nuts on the side of clutch pack until I can no long turn the plate steel on the rod when the clutch is release yet when the clutch is pressed, the belville washers are free. Once I find this sweet spot, I'll remount the pack on the tractor and verify with a straight edge and micrometer that I'm to factor specs.

Long reply, but any comments?

Thanks rbargeron for the PM, I didn't notice it before /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[rbargeron]

I may be missing something but it sounds to me like your pto linkage is not allowing the pto clutch to fully clamp up.

Also, I'm confused about which bolts you took out. Did you take some out with the tractor still assembled? or was it split? Were they the bolts that hold the clutch assembly to the flywheel?

 

[rbargeron]

Tonight I found that my L5450 manual covers the L4350 too. So after looking over the info on two-plate dry clutches I have a couple further comments.

Unless you have at least the centering tool, don't take the clutch off - it's near impossible to get the clutch disks centered without the alignment centering tool.

But more to the point, the L4350 pto clutch is controlled by the lower of the two shafts going into the bellhousing. Look at all the linkage that connects it to the pto engagement lever - something may not be allowing it to return enough to relax the tension in the linkage. When the lever is down (pto engaged) the linkage should be loose enough to rattle - no tension in it.

Back on the clutch alignment issue, the dealer's "clutch table" is a hat box designed to receive the centering tool (so the flywheel can stay on the engine). The hat box has a lid that has some built-in reference surfaces for adjusting the pressure plate fingers.

If you take the clutch out again, it will save time to bring it back to the people with the clutch table. But they shouldn't object to you watching what they do - especially if its possible something went wrong the first time.

The clutch table is part of a clutch tool set that includes several variations for the various tractor models. It may be the right combination of tools didn't get used when they set your clutch up.

As always, prompt cheerful refund if info is bogus.

Dick B

 

[MaltbyMower]

Special thanks to Dick for helping me out here. We talked several times over the phone but let me report back as accurately as possible for future TBN’ers who can use this for reference.
To clear the air about what clutch I have, 2 stage dry progressive clutch. I simple terms, I have the same clutch lever to disengage the travel clutch has the PTO clutch. The first half of the throw is travel, second half PTO.
I pulled the tractor back in half again looking for several possible issues; Belleville washers installed backwards, clutch disks installed backwards or just miss adjusted. I assumed it was just miss adjusted since the others were correct. We measured the clutch throw out bearing travel (which was .660 of an inch). We then compressed the clutch with a bolt that travel through the clutch pack secured by a washer and bolt on the opposite side of the flywheel. This is off the tractor mind you. We compressed the clutch .230 of an inch and then gave it an 1/8th of a turn more to be safe. Then tightened the adjustment bolts and locked them with the jam nuts.
I assembled the tractor and gave it the field test. With the brush hog attached, it would grind significantly to get it in gear….no good. Mind you I’m down to splitting my tractor in about an hour in a half, I didn’t want to do it again. Instead, we drop the loader support frame that covered the inspection cover on the side of the bell housing. This gave us clear access to the adjustment bolts and jam nuts. From here, we dropped the clutch half way. You could see the bolt still had abour .100 of a inch to go before it tightened and started disengaging the PTO clutch. We released tension with the jam nuts and tightened the bolts just down to the PTO clutch housing. We verified that the PTO clutch was not loose when the pedal was completely depressed. Re assembled, field test, worked perfectly!
TBN rocks! I wish I would have found a similar thread as this when I started my clutch job, but here are the search words for the next poor guys to decides to tackle this job on his/her own. Clutch, rust, minuscule tolerances, no working, wife want garage back, sore back, happy mower!

 

[rbargeron]

The refund check for bogus counsel is in the mail /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif - it took me so long to get up to speed on which version of the L4350 clutch you have, I didn't actually help you much.

No wonder the service access plate wasn't visible - the #$^% loader frame was covering it. If not for that you might have fixed it without splitting the rig. But with all that practice I think you may get the prize for best split time.

It's always nice to prevail - especially when the dealer messed it up in the first place. Congratulations on a good job. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif