Surgery begins, splitting the TC24DA.

[JSUnlimited]

First of all, thanks to TCBoomer for your time in sending me pics of your split. It sure helps actually seeing something in color and real vs. a drawing in a service manual.

I noticed that I began to have a slight oil leak about a month ago. It seemed to be minor and only dripped at bit here and there. I was not sure where it was coming from. As time went on there was more and more oil on the garage floor. I noticed that the engine oil had dropped very slightly, but every other fluid was fine. So to be sure, I put dye in the engine oil and sure enough using a black light the oil lit up very nicely (or not so nice)! At this point I'm certain that it is the real main seal.

Since the leak did not seem to get any worse, I planned to split the tractor in the spring when I did not NEED it to plow snow or haul firewood. Well then it happened.....I brought a FEL bucket full of firewood up to the garage as I normally do and pulled into the garage where my wife parks the Suburban. I was carrying in the wood when my little step-son says..."hey Joe, look at all of the oil under the tractor!" I looked and thought....well its time for surgery! Of, course a few nice words were going through my mind. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later.

What concerned me even more is in huge puddle of dirty engine oil was clean hydro fluid. I'm now suspecting a sudden misalignment problem...what else would suddenly cause a huge leak of both hydro and engine oil after 600 hours?

Just for the heck of it, I put a wrench on the "bellhousing" bolts and sure enough, all of the ones I could get to were loose! This tractor was slowly pulling itself apart!

Heres the bolts....

 

[JSUnlimited]

The doctor says, "nurse....hand me a beer!" The projects begins!

 

[JSUnlimited]

Various pics of parts and the like. I am putting the associated bolts, nuts, etc., in zip-lock bags and taping them to the respective part. Also, I'm under strict orders (not really...but I'm just being nice) to not take up space on the other side for the wifes car. I built last summer my other garage 24'/32' you guys may have seen the post. I would have really liked to have done it there as now I have to leave my truck outside. No electric out there yet!

I plan to take the time since I'll have everything apart to also go ahead and clean everything up good.

The first causality was the handle on the throttle. I had to drill the head off of the little screw that holds it on. In the process, the handle took some damage. Oh well, I'll add it to the list of parts needed. It seems the little things are going to be an issue here....aren't they always with any project?

 

[JSUnlimited]

After a little while, I had to go out back to see what my friends are up to. They visit every evening. This is about 50' from the back of my house. I'm waiting for them to launch through the sliding door sometime!

That's it for now. Heading out to do some more....stay tuned!

 

[JSUnlimited]

Opps! I noticed in the background of one of the pics is a campaign sign! Sorry if it offends anyone, I know there are no politics allowed here!

The good news though, "change is here"!

 

[JC-jetro]

Great Job, Mega


Looking good. Keep them pictures coming as we're watching your progress intensely.

JC,

 

[dynasim]

The leak may have been a blessing.

Others have had the housing crack because of loose bolts.

It seems like loose bolts have been a common thread through many failures here(in particular fwd ring gear failure). I am wondering if there ought to be a 600 hour bolt tightening pm for these tractors.

Chris

 

[dfkrug]

Various pics of parts and the like. I am putting the associated bolts, nuts, etc., in zip-lock bags and taping them to the respective part.

Hey, MEGA, before you take any more parts off, why not roll the tractor
outside and pressure-wash everything? It will make working on it a lot
easier and the risk of contamination of the oily bits will be way less. It will
look near-new.

I am lookng fwd to the rest of your tear-down/reassembly pix. Thx for
posting.

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

keep us posted........you are well under way....

the pics are great1

 

[JSUnlimited]

It ain't pretty but it is apart! It really went pretty easy so far. I noticed that the entire inside of the bellhousing was wet from both engine and hydro oil. The clutch seemed to be okay, but I'll see later about that.

I did not get a chance to clean things up as the wife was rushing me to get ready to go out with friends. Now I'm waiting for her to get ready so I thought I'd post these pics real quick. If not suffering from a hangover, I plan to dig in some more tommorrow.

Thanks for all the comments!