Front axle repairs

[oakleaf]

I know this is one of those "how long is a piece of string questions " but when greasing the uj on the front axle of my 1989 Fendt 311 lsa 4wd l noticed a lot of left to right play on the lower half of the housing. When jacked up l can move the bottom of the front wheel in and out an inch or so.
Presumably theres some sort of bearing in there thats gone.
Have an idea that the ZF axles are very expensive to do work on.
Is it an easy job and is it an expensive job?
Is it crazy to do one side and not the other?
The tractor has 15000 hrs up , jumps out of 2nd gear occasionelly , has a few electrical glitches and needs some welding on the exhaust system.
Other than that its perfect for me .
Time to give it the road perhaps??

 

[Farmergrum]

shouldn't be difficult to fix, but could be a number of things, knackered bearing being the cheapest and warn housing, could get into high hundreds

 

[Cowabunga]

Parts are available from Kramp and other sources. Hopefully you will be repairing it before it has eaten into the housing.
Sounds like it needs a few hours attention to keep it going for another few thousand hours. Have you a good local independent mechanic that likes these kinds of jobs? Plenty around here on the West coast of Wales.

 

[Mursal]

Yes tapered bearing gone, if you look under the pivot point, there is a cap with 3 or 4 bolts holding it on, the bearing lives between a round stub welded to the plate and the axle housing.
If no other damage done (an inch movement on a big wheel isn't much) it should be an easy fix. The hardest part will be to get the outer shell out of the axle, if its not damaged, leave it where it is.
It will be a standard tapered bearing so any bearing supplier should be able to supply it if you get the numbers off the old one (stamped on the side).

If on the other hand you keep driving it, it will run into a big job ...............

Unfortunately cant get a 311 front axle diagram, but this will give you an idea whats going on, you are changing number 8 on the diagram,click

Edit:
Just noticed your over this side of the water, Kehoe's of Wexford are very helpful (well they were back in the day when selling Ursus), might be worth asking the lads in the store? But if you strip it early you wont need any genuine parts or at least very few, but don't tell them that. Maybe your an Atkins man?

 

[ACEngineering]

I know this is one of those "how long is a piece of string questions " but when greasing the uj on the front axle of my 1989 Fendt 311 lsa 4wd l noticed a lot of left to right play on the lower half of the housing. When jacked up l can move the bottom of the front wheel in and out an inch or so.
Presumably theres some sort of bearing in there thats gone.
Have an idea that the ZF axles are very expensive to do work on.
Is it an easy job and is it an expensive job?
Is it crazy to do one side and not the other?
The tractor has 15000 hrs up , jumps out of 2nd gear occasionelly , has a few electrical glitches and needs some welding on the exhaust system.
Other than that its perfect for me .
Time to give it the road perhaps??

Sounds like it should have been repaired years ago! 1" play is rather alot on a king pin.

 

[Mursal]

My glass is always half full ....................

 

[Farmer_Joe]

ha ha just done an oil seal on the front of my mf 6465 in hub, there was also ever so slight play in top hub, barely detectable but to my surprise its bushings on the carreo axle not bearings thats relieved me of £80

very easy to remove though if its anything like mine

 

[oakleaf]

shouldn't be difficult to fix, but could be a number of things, knackered bearing being the cheapest and warn housing, could get into high hundreds

High hundreds l csn handle no bother. Its the thousands that frighten me.

 

[oakleaf]

Parts are available from Kramp and other sources. Hopefully you will be repairing it before it has eaten into the housing.
Sounds like it needs a few hours attention to keep it going for another few thousand hours. Have you a good local independent mechanic that likes these kinds of jobs? Plenty around here on the West coast of Wales.

Yes indy's are about. They are all very busy though . It will have to join a queue for a month or more probably.

 

[oakleaf]

Yes tapered bearing gone, if you look under the pivot point, there is a cap with 3 or 4 bolts holding it on, the bearing lives between a round stub welded to the plate and the axle housing.
If no other damage done (an inch movement on a big wheel isn't much) it should be an easy fix. The hardest part will be to get the outer shell out of the axle, if its not damaged, leave it where it is.
It will be a standard tapered bearing so any bearing supplier should be able to supply it if you get the numbers off the old one (stamped on the side).

If on the other hand you keep driving it, it will run into a big job ...............

Unfortunately cant get a 311 front axle diagram, but this will give you an idea whats going on, you are changing number 8 on the diagram,click

Edit:
Just noticed your over this side of the water, Kehoe's of Wexford are very helpful (well they were back in the day when selling Ursus), might be worth asking the lads in the store? But if you strip it early you wont need any genuine parts or at least very few, but don't tell them that. Maybe your an Atkins man?

Yes thanks for that.
Yes l am in cork so atkin is nearest dealer for genuine spares.

 

[oakleaf]

Sounds like it should have been repaired years ago! 1" play is rather alot on a king pin.

Years ago?? It is greased every 100 hours like clockwork and the axle is always jacked up for greasing and l can honestly say l did not notice it the last time. Or the time before that.

 

[ACEngineering]

Years ago?? It is greased every 100 hours like clockwork and the axle is always jacked up for greasing and l can honestly say l did not notice it the last time. Or the time before that.

If your lucky it will have a proper bearing in it with rollers, these can break up with no real warning, so be good one day and loads of play the next.

How ever a lot of axles use a cup and cone spherical type bearing which is just steel on steel no rollers, these wear gradually and when bad like to break up and destroy the axle casings meaning either a new casing or re machining to fix, very common on matbro and sandersons with carraro axles!

 

[oakleaf]

At least its now in a queue and all will b revealed soon l hope.
After reading your replies l will be resisting the urge to use it for one more little job and she is now officially parked up..

 

[Mursal]

Unless you want to jack the wheel up and put a wooden block in between the axle and tombstone on the other side? Keep the weight off the bad wheel ............

 

[ACEngineering]

Unless you want to jack the wheel up and put a wooden block in between the axle and tombstone on the other side? Keep the weight off the bad wheel ............

I wouldn't! the weight on it might be all that's stopping the thing falling off!

 

[SuperTwo]

ZF axle is a different set up than the carraro with the cup and cone. This is off a Case but i'm guessing that all ZF axles of the era will be similar?

 

[Mursal]

I wouldn't! the weight on it might be all that's stopping the thing falling off!

Good point, it was a bit tongue in cheek to be honest, perhaps be a bit unsteady on three wheels?
Might get away with a new number 24 above, if we're in luck
Now sure where @super two found that diagram, I certainly couldn't

 

[SuperTwo]

Good point, it was a bit tongue in cheek to be honest, perhaps be a bit unsteady on three wheels?
Might get away with a new number 24 above, if we're in luck
Now sure where @super two found that diagram, I certainly couldn't

The diagram is of a Case 1056xl front axle which is also ZF. I'm just assuming that ZF used the same swivel design on the Fendt axle too.

 

[ACEngineering]

Good point, it was a bit tongue in cheek to be honest, perhaps be a bit unsteady on three wheels?
Might get away with a new number 24 above, if we're in luck
Now sure where @super two found that diagram, I certainly couldn't

its not good when the king pin rips out, tends to bend the drive shaft steering ram/track rod ends etc etc