Ok whats wrong with this pic

Heywood Jannockitov · Jan 7, 2011

KWentling said:
Don't most dry clutch tractors have a drain hole in the bottom to drain condensation? I've seen them with cotter pins (jiggle pins) in them to keep dirt from plugging them up. Design flaw?
Kim

The last time I was in my local JD dealer back in the fall, I was shown a two year old 5603 that was in the shop and split. It looked just like the posted photographs. You would swear the tractor had been submerged. According to the service mgr, a batch of Indian made castings made it into the supply chain without the drain holes being drilled out. He told me that 5x25 series weren't affected, so I breathed a sigh of relief.

jlsmith · Jan 7, 2011

blueriver said:
I don't believe this should be done ... no matter how hard you try this type of customer will bad mouth you no matter what.

Tell him straight up and to his face, it is out of warranty. There is no extended Warranty. It will cost X amount to fix. When do you want us to start?

If he bulks ... charge him for the already done work and advise him to take it back home.

Yea blueriver your prob right, this will end up a no win situation for me but I do try to make it right for the customer. If it was clearly they customers fault with no doubt about it then i would do that, but since it is questionable on how it happened ill try to help him out. Atleast i will feel better and know i tried to do the right thing and sleep good at night.

jake98 · Jan 7, 2011

Sounds like the proceedure ought to be, 'take the plug out and throw it away'. It's a clutch, even if it was submerged that shouldn't happen to it. That thing looks like it sat full of water.

dourobob · Jan 7, 2011

You sound like a great dealer and you want to be "fair" - I think that is the key to it all.
What is fair for the customer?
What is fair for you?
What is fair from MF.

Anything more than that is "good will".

Bob

simenad · Jan 7, 2011

could be a lot of short runs, start and stops create a lot of condensation and not much heat to dry it up properly.

rjkobbeman · Jan 7, 2011

I don't know... I have mixed feelings on this.

Don't know how the water would get in there, but it seems to me there would be other signs on the exterior of the tractor that imply it was driven through water.

Maybe he uses a power washer to clean it... and a lack of a drain plug just keeps any water (that manages to get in there) in there.

It is 2½ years old but only has 120 hours on it. It does a lot of sitting. Even if what the owner says is true (which I doubt) in regards to running it every day, then he uses it on average about 8 minutes per day. With that kind of use, any moisture that manages to get in their will not get dried out.

This seems like a lack of use issue. Can a power washer squeeze water in there?

sixdogs · Jan 7, 2011

simenad said:
could be a lot of short runs, start and stops create a lot of condensation and not much heat to dry it up properly.

Yes, but a clutch takes a number of months to freeze together so hard it takes a chilsel to separate. I like the idea of letting the comany rep handle it.
Having been in a number of these situations over the decades, we both know the nicer you are the worse it will turn out.

George2615 · Jan 7, 2011

jlsmith said:
Nope its kept out side under a tree. When i stated to him that it looked like its been under water the first thing he said was "I never got it stuck in the pond, besides its 4 wheel drive haw can u get a 4 wheel drive stuck" :laughing: i said ok. Ive seen plenty 4x4's stuck.

Just the owners statement says it has been in the pond at some point. It may not have been stuck but sure was in deep enough water to get things rusty inside. Does the owner know its not waterproof?

rjkobbeman · Jan 7, 2011

sixdogs said:
Yes, but a clutch takes a number of months to freeze together so hard it takes a chilsel to separate. I like the idea of letting the comany rep handle it.
Having been in a number of these situations over the decades, we both know the nicer you are the worse it will turn out.

And I would say a tractor with only 120 hours in 2.5 years has sat for long periods.

Of course my FIL's tractor (an old Ford 800 series) sat for two years until we got around to fixing the ingition. Once we did that it fired right up with no issues.

Who the heck knows...