Good point on the grease. Have to check compatibility of the main two I use on farm equipment.
View attachment 628639
Photo shows a broken lower ssqa pin, upper used pin and new pin. Replaced all 4 lift pins on the ssqa assembly. The broken one broke at the grease groove. Used pins showed wear 0.5-1mm(0.020-0.040? along the load side. New pins 30x150mm. Easy and straightforward to replace. Kubota dealer could not show the bushings on their parts drawing. ??? Reduced a couple inches of play. Still play in bushings and the other four linkage pins. No hardened grease in the grease grooves hopefully means an improved maintenance regime at its new home.
With grapple loads of trees cleared it puts tremendous dynamic loads on these parts.
Keep things spinning in greasy grooves!
Smokeydog, those are some great photos. They clearly look to have been run without grease until they seized. The torn metal is obvious on the one that hasn't broken yet - but is about to...., just as it is on the broken one.
Like most mechanical guys, when I'm running grease into a joint, I try to sort of visualize what the internals of that joint must look like. Doing that helps me to decide whether or not I've gotten the joint properly greased as the grease starts to ooze out the side. The problem with grease joints is you can't really know you got it right.. Just have to take some of it on faith.
But the M59 loader pins are weird. Several times when I've been greasing the front on mine I recall stopping in puzzlement trying to figure out just how that pin & bushing pair would have to be drilled to grease all the wear surfaces. It would have to be pretty fancy. But each time in the past I've put the puzzle away for another day. Now you've inspired me to pull the pins on mine and see how they are doing.
When we see this many pins breaking, I've got to be suspicious and wonder if Kubota got the grease path figured correctly.
Another surprise was that the loader parts are not shown in the printed M59 parts manual I bought from Messick's. I thought that parts book was complete - it sure was costly enough... , but apparently does not include the loader.
No problem, this morning I went online to Messick's parts dept. and was able to look at all the loader parts along with inventory and prices. All the bushings are there, as well as the pins. They keep them all in stock..... I'll attach some .jpgs below. Those guys really go the extra mile to help owners.
In fact, I not only found the loader pins and bushings, but under loader parts I also found the missing hood protector that we discussed here on TBN a few months ago! The optional hood protector thingy is listed under "loader parts". Well, OK...that sort of makes sense, but no wonder those desireable hood protectors were so hard to find and to order. Our M59 just happened to come with one.
rScotty
