BX23 Front Axle leakage Saga finally fixed

[16valex]

BX23 Front Axle leakage Saga finally fixed

I have owned a BX23 for over two years and all but the first two months the front right axle has been leaking ever since. My dealer is a very nice man and at the second visit he found a hair-line crack in the bevel housing itself.

Three days later, I brought the tractor home and on my way out the dealer said " don't worry Alex, that's just the residue from replacing the part, it will dry out in a few days" He was talking about the wet oily stuff on the axle. Any way, the tractor is sitting in the garage and the oil puddle is getting bigger and bigger by the day.
So this is really bothersome, I decided to take it a part and find out what the hec is going on here. To find out, in the process of replacing the crack housing he inadvertedly chipped the front plate with a screw driver and now it won't make the seal to keep the oil contain.
I brought the front plate to his shop, and right away he and I jumped in his truck and went to a shop where they can weld alluminum.
Took the front axle plate home re-installed it, left the liquid seal to dry over night before put back the hydraulic oil in.
So far so good no more leakage, what a pain in the neck this problem was, it made a mess in the garage every day, I can say that I'm a happy camper now.
What I'm trying to say here is I really like my dealer but I wish he has a little more finesses.

Thank you for reading.
Alex

 

[escavader]

Re: BX23 Front Axle leakage Saga finally fixed

ALEX,
Nice guy probably,but if this had started out as a warrenty thing,hed of gave me a new front plate,not just patched it.
ALAN

 

[6or7dazeaweek]

Re: BX23 Front Axle leakage Saga finally fixed

Alex: Check out one of my earlier posts in the PARTS REPAIR forum titled EMERGENCY REPAIRS. This might be good info should you ever need to repair aluminum in the future.

Glad you got the problem solved even though it took a long time.

/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gifJon

 

[16valex]

Re: BX23 Front Axle leakage Saga finally fixed

Oh! I heard of Alumiloy. I saw their info-mercial. They Made it look easy. I wish I had some to try, but at the time the dealer was my first choice since the tractor is still under warranty. If I ask for a brand new plate it would of take a week, I would be stranded without a tractor and we had about 6 inches of snow yesterday and I was so glad to use it today.

Alex

 

[jim_wilson]

Re: BX23 Front Axle leakage Saga finally fixed

This is very interesting - there have been a number of people on TBN saying they had leaks in the front axles of the BX tractrors. I had leak similar to the one you are describing in my BX23 and my dealer found the same problem - a hairline crack in the bevel housing on one side. My dealer replaced it all under warranty and the problem has not re-occurred. He also said that there were no instances of this happening on the Kubota tech references and the Kubota rep had not heard of this happening before.

Your dealer should make sure that he reports this to Kubota - my suspicion when this happened to my tractor was that there were more instances of this out there that were not getting reported - no offense meant here but I get the impression that a lot of tractor dealers aren't what you would call top flight mechanics. Your report of a cracked housing on your BX23 is a confirmation of this. The more people report this problem to Kubota the better off the next person who has a leak in their BX axle will be.

 

[16valex]

Re: BX23 Front Axle leakage Saga finally fixed

Jim,

I totally agree with you, there've been lots of reports about front axle leakage but for some reason Kubota is not admitting such an issue with hair line crack. However, since my case was a warranty work, don't you think my dealer has to report the problem in order to get pay?
Alex

 

[jim_wilson]

Re: BX23 Front Axle leakage Saga finally fixed

I think in cases of warranty the dealer must have to report something so they can get reimbursed for the work. My dealer told me that when I brought the tractor in for the work they checked the Kubota tech database and could not find any mention of the cracked housing problem in there - the thing I don't know is if dealers can make submissions to that database on their own or if they have to go thru Kubota. My dealer claimed that they sell BX series tractors by the container load and they had not seen the problem before - and you are the only other person (than me) I have seen post a cracked housing problem here on TBN - but I do suspect there are others who maybe just haven't found the problem yet. Many owners solution to the leaking front axles on the BX's has been to fill the axle with gear oil instead of the factory filled hydraulic fluid - since gear oil is thicker than hydraulic fluid this may be masking the problem in some case.

 

[kubby]

Re: BX23 Front Axle leakage Saga finally fixed

I had the crack problem on my BX1500 as well. Dealer replaced the seal twice, then I took a good look with a strong light and saw the crack - see attached picture. This is apparently not an isolated problem.