southerniltractor
Silver Member
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2011
- Messages
- 183
- Location
- Caryle, IL
- Tractor
- Kioti DK40se HST with FEL, Simplicity Landlord, JD130
Howdy folks,
Recently helped my neighbor on his tractor search. He chose to purchase a new LS MT235 hydro with front end loader and backhoe. Very nice little tractor.
Anyway, I'm a bit "particular" as my wife likes to say. As I did with my new Kioti, I went over the machine shortly after it was delivered. At about 10 hours on the meter, I opened up his owner's manual and started getting torque values for wheel lugs/nuts and various other metric fasteners attaching the sub-frame to the machine and those used to keep the subframe together.
Please note we did use his backhoe to dig a trench in VERY dense, sticky and compacted clay. After about 45 minutes of struggling with this task, we stopped that endeavor and found a larger machine to complete the work. During this effort, I began to suspect stuff was loose.
I found only a couple wheel lugs/nuts tightened to the specified torque, but they were not horribly loose. I think they would have been fine. Then I moved onto the subframe fasteners. I determined the torque values by measuring the diameter of the shank as described in the link below. Then, I used the numbers on the bolt head to ascertain what type of bolt I was working on. All were 10.9. Using these two values (shank diameter and bolt type), I looked in the manual at a chart of torque values for various hardware to determine the torque range of each fastener. I went slow and worked each lose fastener up in steps (100 foot pounds, then 130, then 150 and so on).
Metric Bolt Measuring Guide | How to measure a Fastener | Pro-Bolt
Can't sugar coat this one. Only one of the bolts I checked torque on was tightened to specification. In fact, a few were obviously missed during the process of attaching the subframe, loader and backhoe. Many of them turned easily with a small 1/2 drive ratchet over half a turn before they got firm. Two of the fasteners lacked the appropriate flat washers, therefore were unable to provide appropriate clamping pressure on the parts they joined. There is a photo of this as I discovered it. I installed appropriate flat washers and torqued up all his fasteners.
In addition, I found a nut holding the ROPS mounting bolt almost completely spun off the bolt. I tightened all of those bolts/nuts also.
None of the bolt holes were stripped and all tightened up nicely. Also, I didn't see anything odd with holes being oblong as many of the subframe holes are a bit large to aid in assembly.
Anyway, has anyone here discovered anything like this in a new machine? Could all of this had been caused by our 45 minutes of unproductive digging? I'm left scratching my head.
My neighbor is suddenly VERY concerned with the long-term viability of his new tractor. I've had very good service from my Kioti, but I purchased my machine from a very well established dealership. His dealer is very new to the tractor game.
Appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks,
Mike
Recently helped my neighbor on his tractor search. He chose to purchase a new LS MT235 hydro with front end loader and backhoe. Very nice little tractor.
Anyway, I'm a bit "particular" as my wife likes to say. As I did with my new Kioti, I went over the machine shortly after it was delivered. At about 10 hours on the meter, I opened up his owner's manual and started getting torque values for wheel lugs/nuts and various other metric fasteners attaching the sub-frame to the machine and those used to keep the subframe together.
Please note we did use his backhoe to dig a trench in VERY dense, sticky and compacted clay. After about 45 minutes of struggling with this task, we stopped that endeavor and found a larger machine to complete the work. During this effort, I began to suspect stuff was loose.
I found only a couple wheel lugs/nuts tightened to the specified torque, but they were not horribly loose. I think they would have been fine. Then I moved onto the subframe fasteners. I determined the torque values by measuring the diameter of the shank as described in the link below. Then, I used the numbers on the bolt head to ascertain what type of bolt I was working on. All were 10.9. Using these two values (shank diameter and bolt type), I looked in the manual at a chart of torque values for various hardware to determine the torque range of each fastener. I went slow and worked each lose fastener up in steps (100 foot pounds, then 130, then 150 and so on).
Metric Bolt Measuring Guide | How to measure a Fastener | Pro-Bolt
Can't sugar coat this one. Only one of the bolts I checked torque on was tightened to specification. In fact, a few were obviously missed during the process of attaching the subframe, loader and backhoe. Many of them turned easily with a small 1/2 drive ratchet over half a turn before they got firm. Two of the fasteners lacked the appropriate flat washers, therefore were unable to provide appropriate clamping pressure on the parts they joined. There is a photo of this as I discovered it. I installed appropriate flat washers and torqued up all his fasteners.
In addition, I found a nut holding the ROPS mounting bolt almost completely spun off the bolt. I tightened all of those bolts/nuts also.
None of the bolt holes were stripped and all tightened up nicely. Also, I didn't see anything odd with holes being oblong as many of the subframe holes are a bit large to aid in assembly.
Anyway, has anyone here discovered anything like this in a new machine? Could all of this had been caused by our 45 minutes of unproductive digging? I'm left scratching my head.
My neighbor is suddenly VERY concerned with the long-term viability of his new tractor. I've had very good service from my Kioti, but I purchased my machine from a very well established dealership. His dealer is very new to the tractor game.
Appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks,
Mike
