Broken axle M4500

[Kubota Newbie]

Been a while since I've been here but thought this would be worth a chuckle for folks. Mowing hay last week with the M4500 and then this happened.
Of course it didn't happen from mowing. Obviously started a long time ago and finally got to the critical diameter.

 

[NCL4701]

Wow. That sucks.

 

[GeoHorn]

DANG! That would take a HUGE Force….or the axle/casting/forging was defective since mfr…..(?)

 

[JohnDB]

Sorry to hear of that. Thanks for the pix. You going to get a replacement? Did anything else get busted what that happened?

 

[Kubota Newbie]

Sorry to hear of that. Thanks for the pix. You going to get a replacement? Did anything else get busted what that happened?

So I think what happened was this. The tractor was bought new by the City of Columbus and outfitted with a 8 ft twin screw woods mower AND a mid mount 5 ft bomford single arm boom mower that hung out on the right side. Quite a bit of a load on the right side for this tractor. Probably actually a little over loaded. I think all that extra load on the right axle started a crack at a thread root for the outside bearing retaining nut and it just propagated over time until it finally got small enough to give up. If you look closely at the end of the axle you can see the fresh break was only about a inch and a quarter and much of the outer portion of the break is burnished smooth indicating its been that way for a long time.

 

[Kubota Newbie]

Sorry to hear of that. Thanks for the pix. You going to get a replacement? Did anything else get busted what that happened?

Already picked up a used axle. $190. Ordered a new outer bearing and seal and inner o-ring. And of course 3 pails of hydraulic/transmission fluid.
All together about $425. Nothing else appears damaged. Probably could have reused bearing, but....

 

[GeoHorn]

$765 (disc’d) from Messicks. You saved a bunch.

 

[Kubota Newbie]

Yeah, and it was only a hour from home.

 

[D2Cat]

Sounds like you have it figured out and solved as economical as possible. Those side boom mowers are REALLY heavy, requiring counterweight to be able to use them safely.

 

[Kubota Newbie]

Reassembly about 6 hours start to finish, but that includes lunch and about 2 hours dinking around with the cab mounts that didn't want to line up. Good as new.

 

[D2Cat]

Well, now you have it better than it's been since you owned it!

 

[Kubota Newbie]

Yeah, but I was living in ignorant bliss before since I didn't know it was cracked to begin with.
That old tractor doesn't owe me anything. Only had $1,500 in it 10 years ago and at that time it only had 900 hours on it.

 

[JohnDB]

Nice looking machine! 900 hours when you got it ... sort of like new old stock really