Murphy visited today (pics added)

[ReedS]

Ok the weathermen were a little off the mark with the forcast Thursday and Friday, we ended up with near 2 feet of concrete snow! Figured I make a path out to the back 40 with the loader since the blower tractor was out of fuel and had been working it's butt off while digging up the soft unfrozen ground with the chained ags. I was making good but slow progress when I heard an unusual clunk on direction change, no other oddness, continued on til the second odd clunk, this time no forward or reverse! A quick look at the axle was all I needed to see the broken axle tube! @#%^ Went to get the plow tractor... flat rear tire! Aired tire to find the air coming out as fast as it went in! Had to use it anyway to pull the loader back to the garage. Now I have a couple of projects for tommorrow! Carnage photo's soon, need Murphy to visit someone else!The broken axle tube! I wasn't even working it hard when it broke!

Weight box and seat pan off.

Damaged transmission off to the side!

Spare transmission bolted up ready for weight box and seat pan.

Ready to go again.

The spare transmission is ugly but it had nice clean lube in it. I think I will be repairing the original transmission when weather breaks, that transmission looks so much better than this one does!

[SmilinSam]

He must be after axle tubes this week:D

HE took out the tube on my plow tractor a couple days ago...

& bent the throttle cable under the dash on my cabbed blower tractor on his way out666OO

[rm]

4-6 inches of snow ended up being 18 inches here in quincy ma

i woke up to a blizzard.

atleast the tire is easy. the weather was in your favor today. for the axle tube

[perry]

yep the last wet snow fall got my tube also. i got the trans swapped out on mine but still sitting on jack stands. I am not going to put the filled tires back on. going back to the setup i have always ran for years on this tractor. turf tires, chains and 22lb wheel weights with the stinger in the back. http://www.simpletractors.com/club2/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=124232

[perry]

quote:Originally posted by ReedS

The broken axle tube! I wasn't even working it hard when it broke!

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id="quote">

id="quote">nice to have that extra trans around . I bet the tube was stressed from previous occasions and slowly going over time .

[ReedS]

quote:I bet the tube was stressed from previous occasions and slowly going over time .id="quote">

id="quote">

There's no doubt that this was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

I don't flog this tractor but I don't baby it either, typically there's about 500lbs between me and the counter weight on the rear. That's plenty if not a little on the heavy side!

As is the usual, the rule of thumb for any piece of equipment is don't fix it unless it's broke! I could see this coming but there really wasn't any sense in doing anything about it seeing as I have a handfull of spare transmissions, besides having worn spare parts is no good either, they might as well be worn out and broken! As always nothing ever breaks when you don't need it!

[alliskid]

Well, Reed you are no stranger to the drive ends of these machines. you will have it up and running in no time.

dave

[ReedS]

quote:Well, Reed you are no stranger to the drive ends of these machines. you will have it up and running in no time.id="quote">

id="quote">

LOL Indeed, it's aleady to go now! Only that the replacement isn't as good looking as the original, but for the moment it'll do!