Mike H
Silver Member
I had an experience recently with my TC-33D that offers several lessons. I've got about 150 hrs on it. On a recent Friday night I was out playing around with it and it started squealing. And it got loud in a hurry. Only way I could describe it is it sounded like a bearing going bad. Coming from the front drive train but the noise seemed to move (left wheel, right wheel). This was a hear clearly from 1/4 mile away squeal.
10:20 am Sat. morning I call my dealer, explain the situation. I really was calling just to make sure I got in next weeks service queue. I'm about 20 minutes from my dealer. 10:30 they call me back and ask if it's OK to send someone out right now. 11:00 am I return from an errand and there's a technician crawling out from underneath with a grease gun (oh, #$#&$, this is going to be embarassing).
Fixed the problem. He loaded up the drive shaft 'boot'. I asked him how much grease because I had greased every fitting on the entire unit 3 days earlier. Said about 15 squeezes. He noted that he'd seen this on a half a dozen units. First dealt with it two years ago on his own tractor and it took him a week of fiddling with it. He greased it as a last effort before breaking his tractor apart. Said, it appears to be harmless and may happen a couple of times until the front drive train completely breaks in.
He also said he thought about just telling me to do this over the phone but figured he might as well come over, 'just in case'. "No charge, this is what we're here for."
10:20 am Sat. morning I call my dealer, explain the situation. I really was calling just to make sure I got in next weeks service queue. I'm about 20 minutes from my dealer. 10:30 they call me back and ask if it's OK to send someone out right now. 11:00 am I return from an errand and there's a technician crawling out from underneath with a grease gun (oh, #$#&$, this is going to be embarassing).
Fixed the problem. He loaded up the drive shaft 'boot'. I asked him how much grease because I had greased every fitting on the entire unit 3 days earlier. Said about 15 squeezes. He noted that he'd seen this on a half a dozen units. First dealt with it two years ago on his own tractor and it took him a week of fiddling with it. He greased it as a last effort before breaking his tractor apart. Said, it appears to be harmless and may happen a couple of times until the front drive train completely breaks in.
He also said he thought about just telling me to do this over the phone but figured he might as well come over, 'just in case'. "No charge, this is what we're here for."
