TuffTorq K46 Repair Guide with Pictures

   / TuffTorq K46 Repair Guide with Pictures #431  
Chris / all,
JoeBob, please correct me if I'm wrong and/or you disagree with any of this. I just successfully rebuilt my TT K62 using your "machining method", instead of having the parts 'machined', I carefully did the following:
1. I sanded the motor, pump and case assembly
2. I used a small piece of oak (any extremely flat surface) and used 3M sticky back sand paper (320 grit, 400 grit and finished with 600-grit)
3. each side/piece took me about 15-20 minutes of careful sanding in a circular motion

sorry in advance, I know these aren't great pictures, however... you should be able to understand the point.

CENTER CASE BEFORE: note the scoring or rings. (BAD)
View attachment 290364View attachment 290365


CENTER CASE AFTER:
View attachment 290367View attachment 290368


CENTER CASE new vs old: (I purchased a new center case assembly, but decided to try sanding my original center case assembly first - worked like a champ)
View attachment 290369


Additionally, I also carefully sanded both surfaces of the matting pieces (the revolver pistol chamber looking thing). Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures.


FWIW / misc info:
1. used Castrol Syntec 5w-50 (~$28.50 about $9.50 per quart)
2. replaced both filters ($42.58 for both)
3. used Permatex - Ultra Black Maximum Oil Resistance RTV Silicone Gasket Maker (about $9.50)
4. TOTAL COST: $80.58

Thanks for posting. Wish you had a better camera.
 
   / TuffTorq K46 Repair Guide with Pictures #432  
Thanks LotsofGreenGrass for the time and effort to put the writeup together. I used this and the youtube video from "punchyoureyehole". Just finished my rebuild and will see how it went tomorrow. I'm letting the RTV cure overnight.
 
   / TuffTorq K46 Repair Guide with Pictures #433  
E30TECH,
Good luck, good job & welcome!

There's tons of great information out here and in some of the others threads too!
 
   / TuffTorq K46 Repair Guide with Pictures #434  
E30TECH,
Good luck, good job & welcome!

There's tons of great information out here and in some of the others threads too!


Thanks for the welcome. I have been lurking for a few months and have found some helpful info.
 
   / TuffTorq K46 Repair Guide with Pictures #435  
SJSmith. Thanks for pictures and approach. What did you do to clean the center case after sanding?
 
   / TuffTorq K46 Repair Guide with Pictures #436  
Idakiteman,
Welcome! Regarding cleaning after sanding, I used "Super Clean". I don't know if that's the best stuff to use for something like this, but it certainly does the job on oil, grease and 'junk'....

Overall, I'm still amazed at how much power that I have now. I guess I never realized how much I had lost over the years....

Good luck!
steve
 
   / TuffTorq K46 Repair Guide with Pictures #437  
K46 fix
I have a John Deere L110 w/ 53 hrs., & a bad transaxel.Tried heaver oil, no joy. Looking at the surfaces of the block, & motor & clutch cylinders, I noticed very slight scoring between ports. This was the cause of the failure. I took the parts to a machine shop,& they surface ground the parts for $25! Cleaned everything in mineral spirits, including the filter which came out clean & white, blew everything out, reassembled, added 2 quarts & a cup of 10w30, & bingo a new transaxel!!! It seems a lot of these may have the same prob.Don't waste your money on unnecessary parts for 2 or 3 hundered bucks. A few things to watch on reassembly, you need the drawing from Tuff Torq.

1 Make sure freewheel rod stud inside case clears small pin (#25). When free wheel rod is pulled out, it pushes on pin which pushes on washer (#39), which in turn pushes motor cylinder, breaking seal betw.cyl. & block.

2 Make sure washer (#39) dos'nt stand proud of block surface after machining.

3 Make sure notch in axel pin(#64) corresponds w/notch in bottom case.

4 Note orientation of motor housing(#36).If you get it backwards, pedal operation will be reversed.

1

Joebob...could you tell us a little more about how the machine shop ground/polished the center case faces? Did they do it by hand or with some sort of machine, and if so, what kind/model of machine? The part has features which make it a real challenge to find a machine that can get to those two round faces. The machine tool heads I've seen hit other nearby part features which prevent contact with the round faces. Was yours ground by hand and if not, maybe you could call your machine shop and find the name of the tool they used?

Most machine shops around here are $50-100/hour and $25 would pay for maybe 15-20 minutes, and for many machines $25 might not even pay for setup time, much less the actual part work. So, I'm curious if yours was done by hand, and if not, what was the make/model of machine that was used. But I see you've done this twice now...the original repair and again after the cap seal failure when you had not only the center case faces done, but also the pump and motor faces too. So evidently you've got something going there that would be pretty helpful to know. Thanks.!!!

Thanks!
 
   / TuffTorq K46 Repair Guide with Pictures #438  
I just joined this forum, lots of good info so far. I just recently purchased a John Deere 2004 LT-190 lawn tractor with snowblower attachment not JD.
I took it out of the shed, got about 15 ft and would not go forward or backward thats when I checked a few forums thinking I might have to overhaul the transaxle. I have removed the transaxle and found that the driving pulley just above the fan had its spline all stripped out and it was just rotating on the main shaft. The spline on the main shaft is in very good shape, the shaft is not seized and it seems there is no excessive play.

The serial number of the transaxle is of the first batch of three so it would be the earliest version of the K46 ? There is an air bleeder on top but no oil drain plug on the version. After reading about the synthetic oil I am wondering if I should split the case, check the oil filter and change the oil. The tractor has 897
hours on it. I have ordered a new fan and a new drive pulley from the local John Deere dealer which will take two days for delivery.

I know the original owner who bought the tractor new from the local John Deere dealer and has never had any transmission problems with it. I'm handy with tools and can drill and tap for a drain plug.

Should I split the case and change the oil ? if so whats the proper procedure. looking forward to some feedback
 
   / TuffTorq K46 Repair Guide with Pictures #439  
I just joined this forum, lots of good info so far. I just recently purchased a John Deere 2004 LT-190 lawn tractor with snowblower attachment not JD.
I took it out of the shed, got about 15 ft and would not go forward or backward thats when I checked a few forums thinking I might have to overhaul the transaxle. I have removed the transaxle and found that the driving pulley just above the fan had its spline all stripped out and it was just rotating on the main shaft. The spline on the main shaft is in very good shape, the shaft is not seized and it seems there is no excessive play.

The serial number of the transaxle is of the first batch of three so it would be the earliest version of the K46 ? There is an air bleeder on top but no oil drain plug on the version. After reading about the synthetic oil I am wondering if I should split the case, check the oil filter and change the oil. The tractor has 897
hours on it. I have ordered a new fan and a new drive pulley from the local John Deere dealer which will take two days for delivery.

I know the original owner who bought the tractor new from the local John Deere dealer and has never had any transmission problems with it. I'm handy with tools and can drill and tap for a drain plug.

Should I split the case and change the oil ? if so whats the proper procedure. looking forward to some feedback
 
   / TuffTorq K46 Repair Guide with Pictures #440  
Trainguy...you can change the oil without splitting the case. There are two round black plugs in the top of the transaxle. One is the vent and has molded features that look like they're for manually twisting off that cap...but DON'T...you'll break it! The other is plain flat black a little larger diameter than the vent cap. This is the seal cap. It's under the fan/pulley assembly. To change the oil you pull the tranny out of tractor, pry up the seal cap, and turn tranny upside down to pour the oil out this seal cap. The seal cap has a metal perimeter ring with a soft rubber plug insert molded onto that ring. You take a thin screwdriver or wood chisel blade, wedge it under the perimeter ring so it's between the seal cap and aluminum case. Then a couple light taps w/ hammer and you'll see it'll start to pop out. Under that seal cap is a magnet for collecting ferrous debris, to keep that debris from grinding the tranny to death. It slides out easily you'll see and you'll want to clean that magnet of course. 900 hours is a lot but you could just change the oil & clean the seal magnet and go for it & see how much more life you can get out of it. Use 5W50 oil which is more resistant to burning at high temps than 10W30 that was originally put in K46's. Burning oil creates the hard carbon particles (i.e., carbide, diamond is carbon) that microscopically end up grinding up the hydraulic parts. Thing is, you'll need 3 quarts because transaxle takes 2.2 qts or so (see prior posts about oil changing)...and that'll run right near $30. Your transaxle is so old, and the pulley spline failure is major wearout and potentially indicator that the stuff inside the case isn't far behind. You could waste $30 on 5W50 because the stuff inside is ready to fail. Or you might get lucky and it'll live another season or more??

If your tractor has 900 hrs and been pushing a snowblower in addition to mowing, 900 hrs out of that transaxle seems amazing. Odds are it doesn't have much life left. The tranny case has two halves internally, a differential side and the hydraulic drive side. Inside the case on the differential side is another magnet (you have to open case to inspect & clean that one). Odds are that magnet in yours is loaded up. Since your transaxle has such high hours and you've already pulled it, I guess I'd be tempted to open the case & inspect everything. Look at the differential side gears and see if they're fairly eaten away or fractured with points broken off. May find you want to replace some of those. Then, if I'm that far into it, I'd pull the center case and pump & motor "revolvers" and inspect their faces...the two on the center case, and the bottoms of the two revolvers that ride on those center case faces. If those are scored like the pictures you see in this thread, those parts either need to be replaced...or you can grind/polish them manually. I just got done grinding mine (my tractor started slowing down and now halts mowing just 3/4 acre yard, having about 300 hours). Soon I'll post a separate message that has pictures and tips from my repair experience. I found there's a little misinformation in some of the posts (but not much), and there's some tips for reassembling that haven't appeared.

The thing is...if that is the original transaxle in the machine, and it has 900 hours, you might find that there are many differential side gears you'd wanna replace that look busted up, and you'll probably want to either replace or grind/polish the center case and two revolvers. If you buy all those parts, it could exceed the cost of a new transaxle, and maybe you'd be better off trying to find a low hours used transaxle. To save about $270 in parts you can grind the revolvers and center case faces, but that's a few hours in my experience (of course, depends on how you do it and how smooth you want the surfaces to be).

So, I guess you could drain & change the oil to 5W50 and see if your luck continues and your's turns out to be the Methuselah of K46 transaxles. Or I'd inspect everything and determine what you'd want to replace or grind, tally up the part cost & time (on TT website), and decide if you're better off just getting new transaxle or finding a low hours used one.

Good Luck!!
 
 
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