frankz
New member
Last year, I parked the old Farmall and got a used Kubota 1550 which was much newer and consistent
with the size of my place. Why a Kubota 1550? --It was being offered at very good price because the
previous owner was having trouble with vibration when the clutch was depressed. It had only 785 hours
on the meter.
With the help of a moonlighting tractor (blue) mechanic, we fixed the clutch problem which apparently was
due to a missing pilot bearing (I don't know how that could have happened!). It worked fine for most of the
summer, but last week, when mowing the pasture behind the barn, I was approching the barn in second
gear at 2400rpm. I depressed the clutch to downshift in preparation to make a quick U-turn and found that
the clutch wouldn't disengage. PANIC!!! Fortunately I could get to the fuel cutoff knob before I hit the barn!
I stopped just 2 feet short of it!
I called Buck Bond at EFC Equipment, the nearest tractor shop and asked for help. Buck picked up the
tractor at my place at about 10 am. I dropped by his shop and about 1:30 pm to find out what the plans
for repaing the tractor were and found that his mechanic had already split the tractor and found the
problem. See the attacted photo. The clutch plate was full of radial fractures. Two pieces had dropped
out releasing one of the damper springs which fell between the pressure plate and the diaphragm spring
jamming the clutch mechanism. In the attached photo, the missing pieces of plate can be seen as the
white segments adjacent to the central hub of the friction plate (I hope this can be seen at screen
resolution). The spring is in the mechanic's left hand. I suspect that the fractures were already there
during the previous clutch repair but were not seen because of poor shop lighting and our inattention.
The moral of the story -- inspect everything thoroughly during disassembly and repair. You can save a lot
of time, aggravation, money , and possibly injury if you do.
Frank
with the size of my place. Why a Kubota 1550? --It was being offered at very good price because the
previous owner was having trouble with vibration when the clutch was depressed. It had only 785 hours
on the meter.
With the help of a moonlighting tractor (blue) mechanic, we fixed the clutch problem which apparently was
due to a missing pilot bearing (I don't know how that could have happened!). It worked fine for most of the
summer, but last week, when mowing the pasture behind the barn, I was approching the barn in second
gear at 2400rpm. I depressed the clutch to downshift in preparation to make a quick U-turn and found that
the clutch wouldn't disengage. PANIC!!! Fortunately I could get to the fuel cutoff knob before I hit the barn!
I stopped just 2 feet short of it!
I called Buck Bond at EFC Equipment, the nearest tractor shop and asked for help. Buck picked up the
tractor at my place at about 10 am. I dropped by his shop and about 1:30 pm to find out what the plans
for repaing the tractor were and found that his mechanic had already split the tractor and found the
problem. See the attacted photo. The clutch plate was full of radial fractures. Two pieces had dropped
out releasing one of the damper springs which fell between the pressure plate and the diaphragm spring
jamming the clutch mechanism. In the attached photo, the missing pieces of plate can be seen as the
white segments adjacent to the central hub of the friction plate (I hope this can be seen at screen
resolution). The spring is in the mechanic's left hand. I suspect that the fractures were already there
during the previous clutch repair but were not seen because of poor shop lighting and our inattention.
The moral of the story -- inspect everything thoroughly during disassembly and repair. You can save a lot
of time, aggravation, money , and possibly injury if you do.
Frank
