L3540 front axle case and hub bearings

[grsthegreat]

Ahhhhh, ive been asking this question since we did the first one on his tractor. Finally someone that had it happen and verifies that counter weight is the way to go. Thanks. What model tractor?
His 600lb-ish one, he says, is borderline for snow plowing. Makes the front, almost too light for turning. Ill convince him to use it in the warm weather when lifting heavy stuff.

I have this counterweight on my kioti dk45. Supposed to lift 2700# and i did too much lifting and moving without counterweight. I trashed the front bearings et al.

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[5030]

I do believe that all brands, not just Kubota use ball bearings in the front outboards. In reality they should be angular roller bearings. Like I said, mine are fine and I've had both sides apart on my open station M9 but the ball bearings are the failure point as in too much load on a concentrated area.

Both mine have way more hours on them than most owners put on and I have never had a 'counterweight' on the back except the shredder which isn't back there constantly and both the cab unit as well as the open station move and load round bales every year and my rounds always weigh in the excess of 1000 pounds. Granted, my M's are a bit bigger than most members on here tractors are but I still feel that big or small, the front ends should have roller and not ball bearings.

The other thing about it is, they most likely won't fail while the tractors are under warranty either. Failure is gonna be 'down the road' a bit.

One of the main reasons I run 85-140 gear oil in the front axle. I believe in prevention is better than failure and the 85-140 is at least better shock load prevention than hydraulic oil in m y view. Maybe I'm FOS but I feel better with it in the front axle anyway.

 

[5030]

I have this counterweight on my kioti dk45. Supposed to lift 2700# and i did too much lifting and moving without counterweight. I trashed the front bearings et al.

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  20220813_133845.jpg

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  20220813_133953.jpg

  2.5 MB · Views: 346
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  20220813_134004.jpg

  3.5 MB · Views: 363

Interesting. The front outboards on my M9's are substantially more 'beefier' than yours are. Just removing them take 2 men to manhandle them but regardless, the ball bearings are the weak point. Mine have no less than 26 hex head cap screws holding the outer housing to the inner housing as well. Any way you cut it however, it's a miserable job that should not be in the first place and the parts aren't cheap either.

 

[sd455dan]

Interesting. The front outboards on my M9's are substantially more 'beefier' than yours are. Just removing them take 2 men to manhandle them but regardless, the ball bearings are the weak point. Mine have no less than 26 hex head cap screws holding the outer housing to the inner housing as well. Any way you cut it however, it's a miserable job that should not be in the first place and the parts aren't cheap either.

I had a seal fail on the tractor, outer had a piece of wood stuck in it and inner lip seal was hard so replaced it. Bigger shaft and bearings do seem to help.
I was barely strong enough to put the hub back on but used the backhoe with a chain to lift it off and carry it in to the garage during disassembly.

At over $140 for an SKF bearing wasn't anxious to replace it either.

 

[IndyIan]

Interesting. The front outboards on my M9's are substantially more 'beefier' than yours are. Just removing them take 2 men to manhandle them but regardless, the ball bearings are the weak point. Mine have no less than 26 hex head cap screws holding the outer housing to the inner housing as well. Any way you cut it however, it's a miserable job that should not be in the first place and the parts aren't cheap either.

Yep, it seems the bigger tractors are a bit more robust for their loader capacity. Although I would've thought a M9000 might just have a solid front axle with the yoke and universal joints on the ends? I assume that is a stronger axle design again?
From how I read the tractordata specs, the loader on the 2 ton DKSE series pretty much matches even the loader on the 3 ton M9000, except for lift heights since its a lower tractor. It is kind of a useful feature to have a strong loader on a little tractor, but you have to respect it and how it could break your front axle if you aren't careful.
So far I have no play or issues with my front axle, and I always have a 1000lbs on the back for heavy loader work but I have snuck the a few 800lb bales to the feeders with nothing on the back, or just the lightweight rear blade on for snow... But that's only a 100 yds of going slow.
I do use the full capacity of the loader on occasion, but mostly popping rocks, or stumps out of the ground using the bucket curl, or trying to lift the whole gravel pile at once...

 

[5030]

Because I own a stump grinder, I never 'pop' stumps out of the ground which results in a big hole that needs to be backfilled anyway. I use the loader for it's intended purposes only.

 

[IndyIan]

Because I own a stump grinder, I never 'pop' stumps out of the ground which results in a big hole that needs to be backfilled anyway. I use the loader for it's intended purposes only.

Yep good idea if you got one, although its not so good on rocks.... If I can, I try to leave the loader in float, and use the curl to do the really tough lifting, so I'm not stressing all the expensive parts, although buckets aren't cheap these days either... What I try to do is take the whole small tree at once using the bucket edge to cut roots on 3 sides and push it over, slowly and then push it or carry it to the nearest patch of woods. 8-10" softwoods or junk maples aren't really hard to do with a bit of an edge ground onto the bucket. I'm not digging 20" hard maple stumps, stuff like that gets cut flush or lower with the stumper saw.
So far I've been breakage free, but going slowly and carefully is pretty easy to do with HST. I figure with no impact loading, probably the loader is designed to take whatever loads the cylinders make, or a straight push with the tractor. I've watched guys using construction TLB's hammering them around and if I used my tractor like that, the loader and front axle would be broken pretty fast!

 

[5030]

Good, high quality stump grinders are basically immune to rocks because all the cutter teeth are solid tungsten carbide, least on mine they are and they are indexable to 3 different cutting edge positions. Of course I'm grinding stumps, not cutting concrete.

Why I bought the grinder I bought as the the teeth on the cutter wheel are pretty much industry standard that I can purchase from the manufacturer which is local to me, or off Flea-Bay if I want to and the ones I run are also resharpenable with a diamond wheel of course.

 

[5030]

I own more than one bucket. I have a light duty bucket and a heavy duty double bottom excavation bucket that usually has a hay spear bolted in it. I'm always careful with the light duty bucket, don't want to impart a smile in the bottom. I've repaired more than one smiling bucket in the past for customers and when you put a smile in the bottom, you have to cut both side sheets and then lever (hydraulically) the bottom to make it straight again and then reweld the side sheets to the bottom.

My HD excavation bucket is basically indestructible. It has a double bottom and 3 additional welded in strips on the bottom and the side sheets are 2 times as thick as a light duty bucket. It's heavy though.

 

[5030]

Considering the insane cost of the bearings, you can use the catalog number on the bearings to source any brand you want, including the cheap Chinese ones. Every manufacturer adheres to the catalog numbers on whatever bearings you have.