Wet brakes on Mitsubishi D1600

[uruiamme]

2 wheel drive Mitsubishi D1600

I have a bad brake on one side, but it looks like it is difficult to get to the brake shoes on my tractor. A little lever connects to the housing. No amount of rotating it applies the brake on the left side, but the right side is fine. So it's an internal part I have to look at. Does anyone know if this will work?

1. Remove the rod (done)
2. Drain the transmission (already done)
3. Raise and block up the tractor
4. Pull the wheel off
5. Choice A: Remove the cover plate hiding the axle shaft and do something??
6. Choice B: Do not Remove the cover plate hiding the axle shaft.
7. Unbolt the brake housing from the machine and slide it out
8. Hopefully now look at the brake and get whatever parts are broken from a site sponsor

I thought maybe that Choice A might be needed if there is an axle nut and I have to pull a half-shaft at this point just to get to the brake.

I also have a bad seal on the same side of the tractor where the rotating brake mechanism penetrates the housing. I got a few pictures to look at. (YES, I took some pictures of the side that is good. I didn't know I was going to post these pictures about a brake until now.) This tractor has a drop-down axle rather than a straight shaft out from the rear end (see last picture), so it's a little different from the larger ones.

 

[Roadworthy]

Have you considered getting a manual for the tractor? I never had brake trouble with my D2350 but I did have a shop manual for it. Check with Valley Power

 

[uruiamme]

Re: Wet brakes (dry brakes now!) on Mitsubishi D1600

Ok, guys, I got the brakes fixed!! Yahoo. It was a head scratcher, so this is what happened...

I saw that the brake mechanism was leaking oil, and thought for sure that the transmission fluid was leaking at the pivot that operates the brake shoes. Well, after looking around and talking to Valley Power, I realized that this is supposed to be a dry brake and there was not supposed to be a leak there due to it being a chamber with no fluid ever.

So it must be an oil seal, and I was going to find that the transmission fluid was in with the brake and that caused a bad braking condition.


I was only half right. When I split the brake housing from the tractor and pulled the half axle, I saw a bad seal that goes to the lower axle shaft, which for this tractor contains SAE 250 gear oil. That's a story of its own, because that heavy of a gear oil is hard to obtain at most auto and tractor stores... I was told to settle on SAE 140 or 85W-140. I would have preferred an SAE 190 (a new weight) in a conventional oil, but most of these oils are synthetic and expensive.

This broken oil seal meant that heavy oil was coming up the ring gear against gravity and pushing its way sideways into my brake housing and going quite a ways horizontally to the drum and all the way to the back of the other oil seal. Crazy stuff.

Well, I have some info for you guys.

1. The rear axle ring gear is an old-fashioned BEVEL GEAR, a standard straight 90 degree cut ring and pinion! Those aren't used much anymore. I understand that all rear-drive vehicles since the 1930s have used an improvement called the hypoid, spiral, or Zerol gear in their differentials, which makes them quieter.
2. Most gear oils are GL-5, with the occasional GL-4 for a few applications. The higher the rating, especially GL-4 or GL-5, the more an oil can allow hypoid gears and their extreme pressures due to their sliding motion.
3. I examined my axle pinion and forgot to get a picture of it, but I am 100% sure it doesn't need GL-4 or 5.
4. My local farm store carries cheap GL-1 rated SAE 140. I fill the axles a little over full to compensate for the thinner oils.
5. GL-1, 2, or 3 are fine for this type of ring gear because there is no need for extreme pressure additives that differentials need.
6. The guy at Valley Power helped on this a lot.
7. The torn oil seal was marked and available on the fleabay. AE2369A -- I think it was between $10 and $15.
8. As chance would have it, the seal that I assumed was bad was super hard to find, so I'm glad it was still intact. (AE1975E)

And here's my "wet" brakes! LOL



And the split housing:


Here's the brake drum covered in oil (stamped 17029):


And how easy it was to split this housing:


And the brake mechanism revealed:


With a closeup of Mitsubishi tractor engineering:

 

[uruiamme]

Re: Wet brakes (dry brakes now!) on Mitsubishi D1600

What I neglected to say was that there was a bearing adjacent to the bad seal. That bearing is lubricated with the SAE 250 as it is the bearing that holds the axle on the inboard side of the housing. I had to split the brake housing from the axle housing, and when pulling the axle shaft out, this inner bearing fell apart. I had to retrieve all of the roller bearings, pop out the outer race, and put cable ties on it for the week it took to get the oil seal. It didn't have a good number on it that I could see, so I'm glad I didn't have to match it. Not shown is the outboard axle shaft bearing, a ball bearing style, that looked completely different and was up against the axle housing.

Also, the fill hole of the axle housing forces the incoming oil to hit the roller bearing, which is pretty smart.