Rear axle\wheel movement ?

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whatscookin

Member
While removing the snow off of my boots by kicking the rear tire i noticed the wheel moving when i kicked the front part of the tire and then i gave the rear a little kick and the tire swung in a little bit so i checked the other side and the same thing so i raised the rear end up and they both move the same way but there is no niose like bearings going bad it might be normal but i want to know for sure. It is a 2006 with 425 hours that i just bought and the rest of the machine looks very good so i really do not think i have a problem but if there is i need to get on it.
 
Man, how hard did you kick it? :poke: :yum:

Seems to me it should be hard to move a wheel on any tractor by kicking it. What kind of Kubota is it?
 
Whatscookin, jack the rear and see how much movement there is. If just the ujoints are shot it's $$ but if the shafts are ruined, it will probably be twice that price. I would put it in limbo until this is checked out. More after supper. Good Luck Bordercollie
 
When my rear u joints went bad, it was a more noticeable back and front movement . I did not have side movement to the best of my remembering. The way I found out ... I heard a click when starting to move. I jacked mine up and rotated the wheel. I could see the free play in the ujoint as I rocked the wheel. The entire assembly can be bought with the shaft if there is any damage to the shaft- all put together or the ujoints alone can be bought. It's a matter of breaking down the bed,bumper etc. and putting it in. Both sides take just a small bit longer to replace than just one because most of the labor is in dismantling -which is already done for the first side.So if you take it to Kubota be mindful they don't charge for 2 sides independently . They tried to pull that on me. They lost. How did things look under the rubber wheel cap? Do you see a cotter pin thru the nut there? I was thinking that if the nuts had come loose, it might be causing this problem - the wheel being able to shift sideways.The nuts should be tight and with a cotter pin thru them and into the hole in the shaft to keep them from loosening themselves. Check this ASAP to prevent shaft damage just in case. Good Luck ,Bordercollie
 
The play that i have is not the universal joints but the tube that the axle shaft goes through allows movement of the shaft so my question is the shaft held tight in the tube that holds it? I'am not very good at asking questions but i have made a living as a mechanic for years and something doesn't seem right here. The tube that i'am referring to is the one that goes around to both sides and has the hitch welded to it and acts as the suspension but with only 450 hours on the machine and as nice as the rest of it is i sure hope it is designed this way.
 
The big tube that holds the bumper hitch is like a crossmember that holds both wheels in posistion. It is attached to the vehicle only at the leaf springs with 4 bolts per side. If the crossmember moves then the leaf spring bolts have to be loose.

But it sounds like your crossmember is tight. Bordercollie is correct in that you need to pull the rubber bearing protectors off each wheel and see if the axle nuts are tight or loose and that they are pinned. If they are snug then you probably have the dreaded axle spline issue. I haven't seen it but I guess some splines randomly deteriorate for whatever reason. For 2011 Kubota states that they have made the axles/splines tougher so I guess it was an issue for them.
 
What i found

I raised it up and took off the wheel then the rubber cap and found rust in the cap and i could tell the large lock washer was not flattened out under the large castle nut so that is where the play is comming from the spline to hub mating, i have a couple of older BMW motorcycles so spline wear is not new to me so i removed the hub flange and looked it all over with minimal wear on the splines and i went ahead and filled the cavity behind the seal with oil before installing the hub then i used a grease i use on splines and i made a few calls and found the torque is 110.6 ft lbs which seem high to me but that is what the book says. I put it all back together and there is no crunching or binding going on so i hope i'am good to go. I question why the setup got loose in the first place and all i can do now is to watch and check if it all stays tight. I do believe everyone should check this by kicking their wheels at 9 and 3 oclock to check for play,i did mine in the snow. I think this could get costly if not caught.:pat:
 
Thanks for the heads up. I will have to check mine out. I am always leery of high torque values on metric threads. Have machined both SAE and metric but the metric seem to be use once threads and strip easy.
 
I have a note in my WSM that I found somewhere that the rear axle nut torque was increased from 110 to 140 ft lbs.

You may want to call your dealer and verify.

And yes there were some that did get out with not enough torque and that is why everything looks untouched when you remove the rubber cap and yet the wheel is loose.

If I find the thread where I learned this I will post it here.
 
As promised:


For those people running rtv's there has been an increase in the torque spec for the nut on the rear axle. we have had some spline failures here so this is likely important! Remove the plastic hub cover in the center of the rear wheels, remove the cotter pin and torque the nut to 140 ft lbs (both sides).
Kubota also have a new drive shaft available for the front drive (transfer case to front diff) It is reasonably priced and a vast improvement over the original!! (same style as rtv1100)
 
And i thought 110 was high, since this is not a taper fit how much wear do you think i can get away with? I got a price of $75.00 for the hub and i would believe that the cast hub would wear quicker than the splined shaft. Would Kubota help with this considering it is way out of warranty. I called another dealer and was going over this with them and he said they had a customer that had a RTV that stopped pulling itself and they found the hub stripped out so i know there is issue here.
 
110 ft./lbs is really high - 140 sounds crazy! But I'll retorque mine - carefully.

Thanks for the update and further proof how helpful this forum really is for us.
 
Spudhauler does that memo say the ft gets torqued to 140 also, i was talking to my local dealer and he brought up that he would send me the info in a e-mail but i cannot open it. I called him back and he said it says to do them both but the ft is much smaller.
 
I just went throught this. I was having a smoke with a coworker while standing next to the RTV, and just for the hell of it I kicked the rear tire. clunka-clunkl WTF? :confused2:
We both took a look and saw movement at the axle flange. He's an ex quad mechanic so he was familiar with the setup. Apparently Polaris is similar.
A closer look revealed the hub (Kubota calls it an "axle") splines were really sloppy on the "propeller shaft" splines (Kubota terminology again).
I yanked the hub off and thought it looked a little dry behind the seal, but after checking the shop manual I found out the wheel bearings are sealed units and are supposed to be that way. New bearings and seals are cheap, even by Kubota standards, but the hubs ain't ($69 ea).
Weird thing is, when I put the hub back on in a different position and re-torqued it (110 lbs) the slop disappeared. Since I'm not paying the parts bill I'm replacing it anyway. The seal surface was buggered up and the lug bolt threads are getting a bit worn.
 
Kubota also have a new drive shaft available for the front drive (transfer case to front diff) It is reasonably priced and a vast improvement over the original!! (same style as rtv1100)
Click to expand...

I've been hearing about this and I've been desperately looking for a part number. Does anybody have it? Pretty please? The Kubota breakdowns don't show it, and the local dealer is next to useless. We've got 3000 hours on the original shaft and it sounds like a spoon caught in a garbage disposal.
 
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