Kubota M62 TLB Front Axle Oil Level?

[rScotty]

I recently replaced my front axel oil and used SUDT. Even with the lighter oil it takes forever for the level in the axel to adjust in cold weather. Supposed to take 12.5L and it was initially over flowing at 6L. Took several days of top ups to get it set. I'm going with the flow!

It's -8F here at noon today. I put out some special treats for the birds. Not even tempted to go tractoring.

 

[rScotty]

I think The reason it takes so long to fill is that the oil has to make it's way through the small open spaces available in those ball bearings at the ends of the axle housing before it can drip down and fill up the verticals.

It's -8F here at noon today. I put out some special treats for the birds. Not even tempted to go tractoring.

 

[5030]

It's -8F here at noon today. I put out some special treats for the birds. Not even tempted to go tractoring.

Understandable......

 

[5030]

Lets add some wood to the fire... After the initial change on both my M9's I dropped the SUDT (or the UDT) and replaced it with 85-140 Spirax, which I renew every 2 years. I farm with mine and they deal with heavy shock loads a lot so I feel (at least) that gear oil gives better shock load protection than SUDT (or UDT).... and it's less likely to weep around the knuckle radial seal too. Both mine are dry and tight and one has over 6000 hours on it. The other has 2000 hours.

 

[rScotty]

Lets add some wood to the fire... After the initial change on both my M9's I dropped the SUDT (or the UDT) and replaced it with 85-140 Spirax, which I renew every 2 years. I farm with mine and they deal with heavy shock loads a lot so I feel (at least) that gear oil gives better shock load protection than SUDT (or UDT).... and it's less likely to weep around the knuckle radial seal too. Both mine are dry and tight and one has over 6000 hours on it. The other has 2000 hours.

I think that's an excellent choice. Like you say, it's thick enough to stay in the seals and that's imprortant.
Spirax is made by Shell oil, so that gives me confidence in their compounding. It's an EP type - which means it carries some sticky fats and has a lot of protection for slow moving/highly loaded gears like bevels and differentials. I agree that it has much, much better shock load protection than SUDT or UDT.

It gets the shock protection at the expense of flowability..but a front axle doesn't need flow like a trans/hydraulic system oil does.

Spirax is a multiweight and I no longer see a downside there. Straight weight oils have become old technology. the 85-140 is going to be about the lubricity of a 30 wt motor oil most of the time so that makes it light enough to flow through the outboard bearings on the front axle and viscous enought to be stopped by the seal. Altogether good stuff. And it has Shell's Rust & Oxidation (called R&O)additives.

Spirax comes in 80w-90 and 85-140. I use a 80W-90 or a 75W-90 in the front axle on the M59 because I'm often doing chore work or loader work with a cold machine in deep snow. I can pre-heat the engine and do. But there is no way to heat up the axle lube. So I need a lube that will flow enought to at least get out of the way of the next gear tooth at cold temperatures. At low temperatures the 75W or 80W gear oil has the same viscosity as a 20 wt motor oil.

I don't need the 140 for heavy work days in the field like you do, but that's a high temperature viscosity anyway. Manufacturers don't always quote Viscosity Index (VI) - I don't believe that Shell does. But seeing an absolute Viscosity of 140 tells me that the Viscosity Index is really high and that's good. Or at least it isn't bad....I doubt the front axle ever sees the temperature that causes a need for for something with that high of a relative viscosity.

But Shell's cranking up the upper number for a multiweight gear oil intended for slow speed gears like in a differential doesn't have much downside. It's different for engine oils where a larger viscosity range can cause the lubricity of the base oil to suffer - they make it up with additives. But that's not a problem with gear oils. Especially EP type like Spirax.

I really wish our tractors were like commercial machines that have separate sumps for the rear end diffs and axles so that they could run a gear oil back there instead of the common trans/hydraulic oil (SUDT) like they do now. It is just crazy that we have the wet brakes, rear end, PTO, and hydraulic oil all sharing a common sump and therefore a common oil. Those systems have completely different requirements. Plus, brakes and diffs shed particles......
The only possible reason to share oil in those systems is to reduce mfg. cost. But somehow they get away with it. We don't hear of a lot of rear end failures throughout the tractor industry, and most of them run a common sump.
SUDT must have some really special characteristics. About the only way to get the slow speed cushioning in a light viscosity oil is with an expensive additve package. Must be what they do...

Still, that common sump makes a good reason to buy high the best possible quality trans/hydraulic oil and filters & change both often,
I just shake my head when I hear someone say that they use cheap trans/hydrualic oil because it says right on the container that it "meets all specifications". That's not a good bet in my book even though I admit we don't really know.
Unfortunately we can't test oil and filters ourselves; the only answer I know of is to buy the best name and hope.

Ooops, I guess I'm rambling. Talking oil affects me that way....
rScotty

 

[5030]

It's Spirax btw...No problem however. On both my M9's the outboards are sealed from the main member (oil seal) anyway. Each outboard has it's own fill, level and drain plug. Center section is entirely segregated from the ends. I guess that means you could in theory use different lubricants in the center section and the outboards but I just use the 85-140 and have since the initial change at 50 hours which was years ago. 2 years ago I had to rebush the left outboard on my open station M9 (6000 hours). The upper bush had worn through to the babbit layer. I replaced both the upper and lower. There was no scoring on the kingpin, just the bushings were shot from wear. Easy replacement other than taking it apart. Drive the old ones out, drive the new ones in. Anyway, I inspected the outer pinion and ring gear. The was no discernable wear on anything, gears or bearings. 20 bucks each at my local friendly Kubota dealer. Both my units receive pretty heavy shock loading when loading rounds on semi trailers. Lots of forward and reverse movement utilizing the hydraulic shuttle and not decreasing the rpm much either. Replaced a couple tie rod ends as well. Kubota, in their infinite wisdom, their tie rod ends are not greaseable so I replace them with aftermarket with grease fittings. I don't get the rationale on that other than planned obsolence maybe... Never replace an inner radial joint (expensive). I like to remove the boot and pack in extra grease frequently. In reality, they should also have grease fittings but they don't. Fairly easy to pull the spring retainer, peel back the boot and add grease however.

Years ago (before I retired, I delivered crankshafts to the now defunct Electromotive division of General Motors in McCook, Illinois 2 times a week so I got to know the employees there pretty well. I got to wander around the plant (before all the OSHA crap eliminated that). EMD had their own dyno room and did their own destructive first article tests on various assemblies and engines and even back then, they swore by Shell lubricants. Consequently, that is all I've used since, Spirax and Donax in my machine tool gearboxes as well as Rotella original and now Rotella T5 multigrade (5-40) in the engines (both gasoline and diesel). Never had a lubrication failure in my entire life of owning infernal combustion engines or related components.

 

[rScotty]

It's Spirax btw...No problem however. On both my M9's the outboards are sealed from the main member (oil seal) anyway. Each outboard has it's own fill, level and drain plug. Center section is entirely segregated from the ends. I guess that means you could in theory use different lubricants in the center section and the outboards but I just use the 85-140 and have since the initial change at 50 hours which was years ago. 2 years ago I had to rebush the left outboard on my open station M9 (6000 hours). The upper bush had worn through to the babbit layer. I replaced both the upper and lower. There was no scoring on the kingpin, just the bushings were shot from wear. Easy replacement other than taking it apart. Drive the old ones out, drive the new ones in. Anyway, I inspected the outer pinion and ring gear. The was no discernable wear on anything, gears or bearings. 20 bucks each at my local friendly Kubota dealer. Both my units receive pretty heavy shock loading when loading rounds on semi trailers. Lots of forward and reverse movement utilizing the hydraulic shuttle and not decreasing the rpm much either. Replaced a couple tie rod ends as well. Kubota, in their infinite wisdom, their tie rod ends are not greaseable so I replace them with aftermarket with grease fittings. I don't get the rationale on that other than planned obsolence maybe... Never replace an inner radial joint (expensive). I like to remove the boot and pack in extra grease frequently. In reality, they should also have grease fittings but they don't. Fairly easy to pull the spring retainer, peel back the boot and add grease however.

Years ago (before I retired, I delivered crankshafts to the now defunct Electromotive division of General Motors in McCook, Illinois 2 times a week so I got to know the employees there pretty well. I got to wander around the plant (before all the OSHA crap eliminated that). EMD had their own dyno room and did their own destructive first article tests on various assemblies and engines and even back then, they swore by Shell lubricants. Consequently, that is all I've used since, Spirax and Donax in my machine tool gearboxes as well as Rotella original and now Rotella T5 multigrade (5-40) in the engines (both gasoline and diesel). Never had a lubrication failure in my entire life of owning infernal combustion engines or related components.

Yes, Spirax not Spirex. I edited it. Thanks.

After finding those unfortunate rubber covered tie rod ends on mine and seeing no provisions to lube them I bought a grease needle to fit my little hand grease gun. The grease needle is one tool I didn't have and never really expected to have a use for. I thought it might not pump through the small diameter needle but it does seem to work... Testing it on a rag shows me that grease comes out the needle so it must be going somewhere.

The problem with the grease needle is you can't really tell how much to put in, and of course don't know what kind of grease Kubota used at the factory. There are still a few incompatible greases on the market. For the Kubota I used JD's new formulation poly-urea general purpose "green grease". They claim it is more compatible than the old formulation.

It's nice that Kubota put a rubber boot on a tie rod end. It's a good idea. But deleting the zerk? What??
I guess they figure anything that has to do with steering is like emissions: Not something an owner should be concerned with. In fact, lets make that a law......
rScotty

 

[5030]

I use the same Lubrication Engineers Synthetic teflon fortified grease I use on everything else. It's not cheap, I buy it in 150 pound open head drums (have an air greaser and I bulk load my lever guns from it as well). Last time I bought a drum (couple years ago), it was 1500 bucks delivered. 150 pounds typically lasts me 3 years. I'm sure it is more now. Everything has went up, some things quite a bit.

I considered the grease needle too (I use that on the non grease joints on the vehicles (another planned obsolescence deal) but it's easy to remove the spring clip and peel back the rubber boot so that is what I do. Had no computability issues at all. The radial joints are super expensive and no aftermarket is available either. Last time I priced them, they were 150 bucks each at my dealer and my dealer don't mark up my ordered parts at all because I do a lot of business with him and are personal friends for years too. He usually puts my order in with his stock order and Kubota pays the transportation. I've purchased 10 new Kubota's from him over the years. Started small and kept getting bigger and bigger...lol

Not about to pay 150 clams if I can help it and keeping them greased will eliminate failure. That radial joint take a lot of abuse and it's difficult to replace as well.