Loader Don't let this happen to you.

[heviduty]

Last year my FIL bought a used L4310 with fel to use in his small business doing yard work. A few weeks ago while using it he noticed a bolt laying on the fel frame where it bolts to the tractor on the right side. He tried to put the bolt back in, but a piece of the casting was broken off.

When he told me about it, I suggested we check all the mounting bolts. All the bolts were loose on both sides and only two on each side would tighten. The rest were stripped.

Not sure how or if this can be fixed short of replacing the casting, but for now he is using it with the four bolts holding it on. All the other bolts, except the one where the casting broke, are only snug, not tight. The loader is used only to load his dump truck with mulch or topsoil.

I believe the damage had been done when he bought the tractor, but maybe it could have been minimized if we had checked them right away.

Moral of the story is, guys, don't let this happen to you. Keep a check on your fel mounting bolts along with your wheel bolts and tighten them to the proper torque.

[johnk]

Good maintinence tip for sure. We all get complacent and don't check things like we should.

[L4400]

This exact same thing happened to a friend of mine with an older L4300 Kubota tractor (that he bought new). I do keep an eye on my bolts now that this has happened to him.

[creekbend]

Thanks for posting the "Heads Up".

[Bob77064]

Some members have suggested using loctite.

[joshuabardwell]

Definitely. I check mine every month or so, but I get about ten hours of use a month, so if I used it more often, I might check more frequently. I also heartily recommend the use of a torque wrench. A beam-type wrench (versus a "click" type) is pretty cheap, and takes all the guess-work out of installing bolts and nuts. For my loader bolts, which go to something like 160 ft-lbs, it's basically as hard as I can pull. But for my trailer lug nuts, which only go to 80 ft-lbs, I was surprised at how light it was, and had probably been over-torquing them (although not dangerously so, I don't think) for a while.

[joshuabardwell]

Some members have suggested using loctite.

I would hesitate to use loc-tite. I bought a new tractor, with factory-installed loader, so part of the maintenance checks in the first fifty hours or so is checking torque on the loader bolts. The loader bolts came from the factory with paint marks indicating where they were installed to, and presumably they were torqued to spec at the factory. So, anyway, at the first few checks, there was always one or two nuts that were loose, sometimes by as much as 30 or 50 ft-lbs, but I could see from the paint marks that they had not actually moved at all. In other words, the loader frame "settled in," and what had been a tight nut/bolt was now loose. If they had been loc-tited, I would have had to break the loc-tite to bring the bolt to proper torque.

I've observed this same phenomenon when rotating the tires on my vehicles, and it's no doubt why my trailer owner's manual recommends re-checking torque after 50 miles of driving, any time the wheels are removed.

[banjodunn]

G'day you might want to look into a helicoil kit to repair your threads as far as the broken casting it may be possible to get it welded back in and rethread. We are constantly telling customers to check the loader mounts regulary as the loaders are painted and the tractor is painted and it will compress and break up as the machine is used and make the bolts loose.


Jon

[heviduty]

G'day you might want to look into a helicoil kit to repair your threads as far as the broken casting it may be possible to get it welded back in and rethread. We are constantly telling customers to check the loader mounts regulary as the loaders are painted and the tractor is painted and it will compress and break up as the machine is used and make the bolts loose.




Jon

Thanks, Jon, I'll look into that. I thought HeliCoil was only for small sizes but I just checked and they go up to 1 1/2" / 39mm.

[s219]

I checked the FEL bolts on my B2920 at the 50 service, and was surprised how many were loose.