Clutch replacement, was not expecting this

bhaack

New member

Equipment
L305DT
Jan 17, 2025
15
7
3
Kansas
The marriage ceremony is complete! Excellent!!
When I do those by myself, I typically have a chain come-along in the system to help do some pushing for me. You're typically right, remarrying a tractor is usually a two man job. Even a little one like this.
I can't wait to split my 100 hp 4230 (wrong color I know), it needs a rear main seal that I really don't want to do.
 

jaxs

Well-known member

Equipment
B1750HST
Jun 22, 2023
845
650
93
Texas
Thanks for feedback everyone.

I'm sliding it together and it has basically stopped. The two studs on the top of the engine side have just slid into the matching holes on the rear side, so I'm pretty well lined up. I measured the gap at the top and the gap at the bottom and I'm within a mm, so it seems as lined up as I could reasonbly be. But it just will not got further together.

I thought maybe the spines of the clutch assembly arent aligned with the spines of the shaft so I tried rotating it slightly, but didnt detect any give or resistance there.

Based on the gap I think I should be at the point where the shift is just starting to slide into the pilot bearings, so maybe thats not perfectly lined up.
I'm to the threaded studs on the top, but not to the two dowels. I'm right at 25mm gap, within a mm all the way around, so I'm squared up.
Glad to hear it's finally buttoned up. Just for possible educational purposes for the group,does everyone agree with below observation?
From looking at shaft splines and smooth surfaces in pictures and 25mm gap I would think everything was engaged except frontmost piolet bushing.
 

Russell King

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Lifetime Member

Equipment
L185F, Modern Ag Competitor 4’ shredder, Rhino tiller, rear dirt scoop
Jun 17, 2012
5,823
1,657
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Austin, Texas
View attachment 146679
I didnt update yesterday because I had a friend over and we got it together! Anyone capable of getting this together by themselves has my utmost respect and also must have vastly more tolerance for frustration than I do. Even with a buddy it took 30-40 minutes of pushing together, jacking up the back, lifting the front, lowering the back, lowering the front, wiggling the middle, etc. We got it done though.

The whole tractor is mostly together at this point. I should have planned better, I have to refill my hydraulic fluid so I might as well replace all my fluids and filters, so I am going to order those today.

Thank you so much to all of you for the help and support. I tried to document this repair thoroughly in this thread as resource for anyone in the future.

If you are reading this in the future and have any questions dont hesitate to ask here or message me directly.
Could you update on how your tractor is operating after all the questions about machining the flywheel?
 

BastropMetal

Member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
L3400
Dec 20, 2022
32
25
18
Texas
To clarify, I bought and installed a new OEM flywheel. I hated to spend the money, but the thought of - after the months it took me to do all the work - putting it back together and it not working was too terrible to consider. So I cant say for sure whether or not that flywheel would have worked. That being said, and do not take the following as advice, but I still cant imagine how 50 microns would have made a meaningful difference. The clutch discs wear a lot more than that, and the adjustments you can make in the mechanism are far larger than that.

As a side note, I have a flywheel that is only out of spec by 50 microns that I would sell for a very steep discount to OEM. Caveat emptor.

The tractor works perfectly now.

I guess I never did post a summary after all the work. It was great for me. I learned a ton. I had never previously done any major work on a tractor, car or anything else, so doing something like this gave me a lot of confidence and is and was immensely satisfying to reflect upon.

One of the best parts of it was how much time I spent staring at the manual and the diagrams which taught me so much. I would feel comfortable repairing anything at all on the tractor, aside from engine internals.
 
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Shadetree605

Active member

Equipment
kubota b2100
May 1, 2022
228
112
43
north little rock, ar
To clarify, I bought and installed a new OEM flywheel. I hated to spend the money, but the thought of - after the months it took me to do all the work - putting it back together and it not working was too terrible to consider. So I cant say for sure whether or not that flywheel would have worked. That being said, and do not take the following as advice, but I still cant imagine how 50 microns would have made a meaningful difference. The clutch discs wear a lot more than that, and the adjustments you can make in the mechanism are far larger than that.

As a side note, I have a flywheel that is only out of spec by 50 microns that I would sell for a very steep discount to OEM. Caveat emptor.

The tractor works perfectly now.

I guess I never did post a summary after all the work. It was great for me. I learned a ton. I had never previously done any major work on a tractor, car or anything else, so doing something like this gave me a lot of confidence and is and was immensely satisfying to reflect upon.

One of the best parts of it was how much time I spent staring at the manual and the diagrams which taught me so much. I would feel comfortable repairing anything at all on the tractor, aside from engine internals.
i read your whole thread, very impressed with how it turned out for you !. i myself came into something like this on my b2100 a few yrs back. the hydro transmission was shot. soo..i did like you..and dug in, ripped it all apart, piece by piece, all while studying online fich parts layout. i discovered two big things, one: its a job splitting a tractor by yourself. two: no such thing as cheap kubota parts !..lol. to make this post short, i got it all back together, all is well on the kubota home front so far !. my first ever big tractor repair job, and it went fairly well considering i have never done anything like it in my life. i repair/restore atvs ( mostly honda's ) for about 38 yrs now, i do this very well. i don't even bother looking in my service manuals anymore now that i know what i am doing on atvs. but tractor work caught be off guard, but i did it !. again..well done on the repair, enjoyed reading through it very much.
 
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jaxs

Well-known member

Equipment
B1750HST
Jun 22, 2023
845
650
93
Texas
It's always good to hear when these things go as planned. Congrats to both of you on your success.
Bastropmetal I agree with you about turning flywheels but can't fault you for going with new. Kubota adopted a strategy formed by Henery Ford over 100 years ago that says "I'll sell you a car cheaper than the competition then make money selling parts". The flywheel myth is perpetuated because (A) like people avoid a place where a large venomous snake was reported,noone wants to be first to take the risk. (C) limited interchangeability. If someone posted on OTT that four different Bxxxx flywheels preformed beautifully after resurfacing, koolaid drinkers would claim "that's the only model which can be successfully ground" and the myth gos on for 99.9% of Kubota.
If common sense wasn't so uncommon, Team I Herd and Tha Said would be out of business before sunset.
 
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TheOldHokie

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L3901/LA525, B7200DT/B1630, G2160/RCK60, G2460/RCK60
Apr 6, 2021
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Myersville, MD
windyridgefarm.us
To clarify, I bought and installed a new OEM flywheel. I hated to spend the money, but the thought of - after the months it took me to do all the work - putting it back together and it not working was too terrible

As a side note, I have a flywheel that is only out of spec by 50 microns that I would sell for a very steep discount to OEM. Caveat emptor.
Team Common Sense notes that 50 microns = .00197" which is the low end of the thickness of a human hair 🙄

Dan
 
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