Broken axel splines?

[Pks]

Last night while digging with the FEL in my yard, I noticed that while moving into a sand pile, my rear wheels nolonger had power; but the front wheels did. The right hand wheel sort of vibrated in place. The left wheel did nothing; it just sat there. The rapid pulse like motion was accompanied by a faint rachetting sound. I also observed the right rear wheel wobbled (in the vertical plane) while it rapidly pulsed (but it did not rotate). Upon backing out of the pile, everthing appeared normal. When I drove to the tractor's parking place, about 20 feet, it seemed basically normal as well.

I have logged about 20 hours of digging in the yard. The tractor is digging in sand, with R4 tires, filled with antifreeze, using chains on the rear tires, and about 850 pounds on the 3 pt as ballast.

The ground was partially frozen last night. Because of that, I noticed I had very good traction (very rare in my sand with the R4s). It was real easy to approach the embankments slowly without any wheel spin. I really felt that the process was moving smoothly and safely for the tractor. But I am now thinking that I may have had too much traction. I think the right rear tire spun or skipped slightly a couple of times. I wonder if that skipping on the frozen sand sent a shock load through the axel spline.

My theory is that the snap ring and or axel splines on the right axel have failed. More tests will be conducted after work when there is still some light outside.

Any of you TBNers ever remove the right side axel housing on a B2400? After looking through the parts & repair manuals it looks fairly easy.

Peter

 

[rbargeron]

Peter, does the B2400 have gear-reduced final drives? If so, the symptoms would point toward cracked larger gear, or to a broken axle, expecially if the wheel wobbles.

Need Kubmech on this one.

 

[hayden]

If you take it out of 4WD do you lose all propulsion?

 

[kubmech]

Sounds like you guys are on the right track, removing the axle housing is relatively straight forward on that machine. Just be careful when seperating the housing (both sides are aluminium) they don't use a gasket, just RTV, so marring the surfaces could cause some headaches getting it re-sealed. I use an old screwdriver ground to a real sharp edge and flat angle just to get the seperation started (little taps with the hammer) and gently work it off from there. I've seen a few B21's snap the axle (same basic set-up) but they usually break right at the seal and "fall over", pretty obvious. They have an updated axle to prevent this from re-occuring. May even be the same part number.

 

[Pks]

The problem with the tractor is solved. /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

When Mary and I were able to view the right rear wheel in the daylight, we saw that it was rather flat. It then occurred to me that the stuttering I had witnessed the night before was most likely the steel rim slipping inside of the tire. That boils down to: not enough air pressure in the tire for the amount of loading that was going on. I had set the rear tires to 18 psi several days before. But that's when the sand was not frozen. I re-inflated both tires to 35 psi and worked for an hour with no troubles. Since the R4s are rated for 40 psi, there should be little doubt that everything will be OK. It's safe to say that 18 psi is too low for high traction situations and lots of weight on the 3 pt.

It's amazing what a person can see in the daylight as opposed to night time. Whew!

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm sorry to have "pulled the trigger" so quickly.

Peter

 

[Pks]

Kubmech,

Do you know if the axel on the B21 is the same style as that found on the B2400? The B2400's axel allows the wheel spacing to be changed. I wonder if the fix for the B21 would be helpful in preventing that kind of failure on the B2400?

 

[Mike_Dumond]

<font color=blue>the steel rim slipping inside of the tire</font color=blue>

Darn, just when I have the answer for someone's problem, they figure it out. Had the exact same thing happen to me last summer. Was running 16lbs, and the tires would slip. Raised it to 30 when doing heavy FEL work, problem solved.

 

[rbargeron]

Peter: glad it wasn't a broken part - from your description it didn't seem like anything you were doing would have caused a failure. (tire wobble is ominous) BTW, I put some barn details over in photos. Take care.

 

[Pks]

Thanx for the additional barn photos and advice. I'm hoping to post a couple of photos of the land clearing I am doing in preparation for my barn.

I must say, I am impressed by the amount of heavy work that can be performed by these little tractors. And Madison, that's our puppy girl, just loves the hills that get created as a result.

 

[kubmech]

OOPS, that's right, they do have a different axle, can't remember the other "B" I was thinking of off hand. The inside is still pretty much the same.

GOOD DEAL, that was a cheap fix...........................