BuggyMasters
Bronze Member
Well my favorite toy..my 2538 might have an issue. It only has 238 hours on it of dragging my driveway, spreading crush and run on the same, and brush hogging my 2 acre field. I spread 20 tons of crush and run the other day. I noticed some metallic sounds while I’d grab a load from the pile that sounded like the front bucket popping or something. Seemed to be functioning fine so carried on. When done I crawled underneath it and touched every bolt I could with an array of wrenches but found nothing out of place. Next day I went and pulled it out of garage. I did get a clank as soon as I backed up but seemed fine otherwise. Went to start dragging the new stone and on my 2nd pass I got a clanking every 1 second while moving forward. I put my wife on the tractor so I could listen while it was moving and the noise was coming from near the front diff……Ugg. I took it out of four wheel drive and the noise went away….uggg. Finished my chores and put it on my lift. What I found was that the front driveshaft cover, the metal tab for the bolt at the front had snapped off. I took the cover off, drove it both in at out of 4wd and the noise was gone! Hooray..easy fix right? I attributed the noise to the unbound cover rubbing on the exposed splines of the front driveshaft where it goes into its front sleeve looking thing. I fixed the cover and put it on today and needed to do some more brush hogging. Noise was/is gone. This field has a pretty good hill on it and being a little damp I had 4x4 engaged. Going up I noticed back wheels spinning/slipping. How can this be if I am in 4x4? I re-pulled up on the 4x4 lever and it seemed to engage but next time I went up the hill, more rear wheel spinning. If I pulled and held the 4x4 lever up it seemed to keep 4x4 engaged. I googled and wound up here where one guy had similar issue. In his case the front input spot for the drive shaft was missing a few bolts. Ironically, his driveshaft cover broke at the exact same place mine did. What was more interesting is that in his picture, the driveshaft is fully seated into that input spot. His snap ring is seated against it. On mine, the snap ring is about 1/2 inch backward and I can see splines in front of it. On his there are no splines showing. So this brings me to my question: How does this thing work? In two wheel drive does the driveshaft move back away from it’s input and when you put it in 4x4 the entire shaft moves forward and seats with the snap ring seated against that front sleeve looking thing? Really hoping that the roll pin on the 4x4 lever shaft is sheered or something and that someone says without doubt that engaging 4x4 moves that driveshaft forward into the sleeve. If it’s always supposed to be butted against that sleeve like in that guys pic that I have attached, I’m gonna have a big fat expensive problem….with only 229 hours!
Can anyone enlighten me as to how this thing is supposed to work? The service manual doesn’t tell you that. If you look at pic, mine doesn’t look like that. There are splines showing and snap ring is 1/2 inch back from the sleeve looking thing. Will post pic of mine tomorrow.
Can anyone enlighten me as to how this thing is supposed to work? The service manual doesn’t tell you that. If you look at pic, mine doesn’t look like that. There are splines showing and snap ring is 1/2 inch back from the sleeve looking thing. Will post pic of mine tomorrow.
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