From some of the responses to my original post, I need to emphasize that the bolts that came loose are only accessible after splitting the tractor!! You cannot check these bolts any other way - and when they do come loose, you can barely tell that the engine is loose from the mainplate, there is barely a 1/16" gap between the engine block & plate and you can only see this gap in the area just above the starter if you know what you are looking for!! I had a friend flex the loader bucket against the ground while I watched in order to confirm that the engine was actually loose. I have been a professional auto mechanic for 34 years and am quite experienced at diagnosing mechanical problems and know proper shop procedures - the fact is plain & simple - these bolts should have had some sort of locking means and Loc-Tite would have been pretty much the only way. The 2 uppermost bolts do have loc washers, they are the only ones not behind the flywheel, which precludes using loc washers on the other 11 bolts because of space limitations. Once the 11 non-secured bolts came loose/broke, these 2 bolts could not handle the stress of holding the front of the tractor to the rear section. I agree that my case could have been a fluke - maybe they ran out of Loc-Tite that day, maybe the guy was hungover and goofed, whatever. Nothing I did or didn't do to my tractor caused these bolts to loosen and splitting the tractor is not a "normal" maintenance procedure at less than 700 hours. I still think my tractor is a good one, have been happy with it's overall service - it's a little workhorse, and was a good buy compared to other equipment at the time. I would probably buy another one. I did send Mahindra a letter about my problem a few weeks ago, right after I discovered the problem, haven't had any response yet. Haven't been able to contact them via e-mail. My original dealer is over 1,000 miles from where I live now, and my closest dealer is a good 3 hour drive one-way and it's not feasible to take my tractor to them until I know whether Mahindra will help me or not. I just wanted to let everyone know about my problem and to be aware that it could possibly happen to you - just pay attention to any unusual noises while operating your tractor, which most do anyway, and consider what happened to me. Thank you.
