FEL Broke Bolts Today

Texasgreen · Oct 26, 2007

Today when using my 4940C, I could see that my FEL had became loose on my tractor. After stoping and looking things over, I found out that the front bolts had broke on both FEL mounts on the front two bolts. Looks like 9/16 blots with 10.9 and JH stampted on the head of the bolts. I not sure what grade these bolts are but they are soft. Has this ever been a problem for Montana?

Looks like i'll have to get the broke off bolts out and replace them with a higher grade bolt.

SPYDERLK · Oct 26, 2007

Those are a high grade metric bolt. 10.9 is very near the equivalent of Gr8. They are not soft. Either they are undersized for the application [a design problem] or they were not tightened correctly. Did you check them or just use it as delivered? I dont have a Montana, but my tractor was delivered with the loader bolts about 1/2 the correct torque, and a couple were not tightened at all.
larry

Texasgreen · Oct 26, 2007

Larry,

No, I did not check to see if the bolts were tight from the factory. I'm sure they were tight because all of the other bolts were but, who knows those few bolts that broke could have been loose. The reason I was saying that the broke blots seemed soft is because I took a carbon steel Grade 8 bolt of the same size and did a grind test on them. The bolts that broke off ground down faster then what the grade 8 bolt did. No big deal, just a small test of the two bolts to see. Thanks for your information.

Ryan03 · Oct 26, 2007

I do not own a Montana, but I do own a farmtrac DTC 270, which is the sister model to the Montana 2740, and I to had to replace my loader bolts at around 80 hrs. if my memory serves me correctly. My bolts were also rated at 10.9, but were stretched just underneath the heads and would not stay tight. I replaced my bolts with new 10.9 bolts {14mm, I think,} from my local industrial fastener supplier, applied a liberal amount of red loctite, and carefuly tightened with a half inch impact and 18mm swivel socket. I also replaced the flat washers with new ones, just to be safe. It has been around 40 machine hrs. since and no problems. Good look.

SPYDERLK · Oct 26, 2007

Your grind test is interesting because 10.9 is sub Gr8 but not much. Im surprised you detected the difference. If those bolts were tight they are either falsely graded or of insufficient size. There is a metric 12.9 that is stronger than Grade 8, but may not do as well in the heavy cyclic loading inherent to the application. If there is a close corresponding American thread on a larger size it would give a convenient and robust solution using gr8. My loader uses 18mm bolts with a thread extremely close to the slightly larger 3/4. Just lucky if I need to upgrade.
Pls keep us posted on your solution.
larry

Texasgreen · Nov 1, 2007

Today I removed the broke off bolts and replaced them with new ones. The broke off bolts that were in the engine block came out very easy. Thanks for the info guys. Now, where are those dump trucks at I called for some dirt about about three hours ago?