B6000 front axle rebuild Thai style

Changnam 59

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Dec 24, 2011
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Pathumthanee, Thailand
These photos show the repair work to my B6000 front axle.

The king pins and axle bushes were worn out. To make matters worse the king pins had been rotating in the hubs and the hubs were ovalled. Prior to the rebuild there was a huge amount of free play and, because of that, the hub sealing system was completely ineffective.

In this picture you can see the brass insert repair in the hub and the new upper king pin and axle bush. All parts were fabricated from scratch. Both hubs required brass inserts so there are four inserts in total.



The king pins and bushes are CNC machined to Kubota tolerances from SCM440 which is a hardened and tempered high tensile steel. They were then hard chrome plated.

This picture shows an upper and lower king pin and the locking plate for a lower king pin. The locking plate has been made to precise dimensions to ensure that there is no rotational or up and down movement of the king pin.



This picture shows one of the brass inserts with the king pin removed.



I am delighted with the quality of the work. I now have perfectly smooth rotation of the hubs and no free play in any plane. Thankyou to Khun Somboon at S.Y.S. Precision Co. Ltd., Bangkok for this excellent work.

The total cost of the repair work including fabricating four king pins, eight bushes and drilling out a sheared off steering lock stop bolt was 7,500 Baht.

At today's exchange rate that is US$244.

If I had bought the parts from Kubota the four king pins alone would have cost US$325!

Tomorrow I am going to get the gaskets made to enable completion of the work.
 

Kytim

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B6000DT, B7100DT,Snowplow, RM360, Scoop, Cultivator, Carryall,Disk, plow
Aug 14, 2009
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Western Ky
I love hearing about your experiences rebuilding your tractor. great pictures too! Thanks for sharing, although we are thousands of miles apart we all can relate our troubles and solutions in this world of orange tractors. Please keep us updated, I really enjoy hearing from our forum members all around the world.

Great job by the way,
 

Changnam 59

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Dec 24, 2011
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Pathumthanee, Thailand
Thank you for your kind words.

One thing that shapes the way I choose to tackle problems like this is the fact that I have to pay international freight charges and import tax on any B6000 parts I buy from a Kubota dealer abroad.

The B6000 was never sold here and there are very few B6000 parts available locally.

If I lived in the States I probably would have tackled the rebuild differently.

I seem to major on vehicles that are time consuming, expensive and difficult to support in this country.

Falling within that category are a Lotus, the Kubota, a Honda NC30 VFR400 and in June I have a shiny new Ducati arriving.

I haven't told my wife about the Ducati yet!

Luckily I raced Ducatis in the UK thirty years ago and I am no stranger to desmodromic valve gear.
 

Changnam 59

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New to the world of Orange
Dec 24, 2011
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Pathumthanee, Thailand
With the wisdom of hindsight if I were doing this job again I think I would put grease zerks on the lower king pins.

Most of the wear was there due, I suspect, to inadequate lubrication.

My assumption is that Kubota chose not to put grease zerks on the lower king pins due to the risk of impact damage but in my usage that would not be an issue.

I prefer the word nipple to zerk; as used by the English. So much more descriptive.