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Kubota512 · 01-30-2011, 08:18 AM

We found a lubricant leak coming from the left front axle on our L5450. Removed wheel and oil seal cover. To our utter shock we found ALL the bolts that keep the Bevel Gear were unscrewed about a 1/2 inch. The inside portion of the oil seal cover displayed wear from the protruding bolt heads. This is the first time the cover has been removed during the tractors lifetime (it was purchased new). the manual indicates a 'Liquid Lock' needs to be applied if these bolts are removed (I assume this is prevent this exact situation). This leads one to suspect a failure to apply a 'Liquid Lock' at the factory.

Has anyone ever seen this situation?
Could these bolts come loose on their own (all of them)?

Pictures are enclosed to help clarify. A portion of the manual is also shown.

**dangeroustoys56** · 01-30-2011, 02:10 PM

id be contacting the kubota dealer about it- if it was a factory screw up they should know about it. Thats what you pay so much for 'dealer prep' for before picking it up when new.

Lock tite shouldnt let loose like that - if it was that much of a stress on those bolts, they shouldve been wired together with saftey wire.

Id check the other one as well.

**tractor beam** · 01-30-2011, 07:09 PM

Whats the state of the ring gear and bolt holes? Not cool at all!

GreenFlyer · 01-30-2011, 08:42 PM

If all of them are protruding the exact same amount, I believe there are only two possibilities: 1) the person responsible for tightening them did not: 2) the person responsible for making sure they were installed correctly did not. Just my opinion.

**tractor beam** · 01-30-2011, 08:50 PM

How many hours on the tractor?

Kubota512 · 01-31-2011, 09:57 AM

Thanks for the replies, this really helps.
The tractor has 800+ hours on it.
Also we removed the right side cover (to compare) and found that ALL of the bolts were tight. So it does look like what was suggested, that the factory worker did not tighten nor apply a liquid lock to the bolts.
We will post pictures of the right side.

Kubota512 · 01-31-2011, 10:15 AM

Here are photos from the right side.
I did not include every angle, but ALL the bolts are tight.

**tractor beam** · 01-31-2011, 11:16 AM

With things all loose, how did the ring and bevel gears fare in this? Certain that the dealer would blow you off, but I'd still open up a complaint about this!

Kubota512 · 01-31-2011, 11:36 AM

We have not taken off the bevel gear yet, figured we would wait for an initial response from the dealer.
But we are wondering too what the gears look like. We will take photos of this as well and post, almost afraid to look.

**tractor beam** · 01-31-2011, 12:02 PM

Should be interesting to hear the response from the dealers indeed! Too bad it wasn't under warranty.

Kubota512 · 02-01-2011, 02:33 PM

We do have an initial reply from the dealer, which is a quote about the duration of the basic warranty and a offer to help with diagnosis/repair. But this is expected because its not of their doing. So now I think we need to proceed to contact Kubota directly. This is where we have to get tough I guess.

Also, anyone have any experience with approaching tractor manufacturers with thees type issues?

Thanks for the replies so far

Kubota512 · 02-08-2011, 03:43 PM

Sent Kubota a letter detailing our situation. Let's see how they respond.

Kubota512 · 02-22-2011, 04:36 PM

We received a reply, via a phone call from Kubota, to our certified letter detailing the issue concerning the loose bolts. Their official position is: Kubota tractors with as many hours and time as ours has on it, can expect bolts such as these, to come loose. We responded with the fact that if liquid lock was used, they should NOT have come loose.

The manual states that a liquid lock must be applied to the bolts during reassembly, and we think its obviously to prevent this exact situation, wherein the bolts can work them selves loose.

We think the issue is NOT due to the age of the tractor, but rather a failure at the factory to follow (IE skip) their proper assembly procedures. Of course, its always easy for large corporations to side skirt manufacturing issues such as these, but in long run this is a similiar approach that General Motors took in dealing with customer/quality issues, and it did not benefit them in long run.

Bottom line is, we are stuck with fixing what amounts to their assembly mistake, and in our case IT DOES DEFINITIVELY color our view Kubota's reputation for quality. I am sure they would disagree, but the market and customer experience determines how well a company performs, and ultimately how long it effectively stays in business.

Thanks to ALL those who have us helpful feedback and advice on this issue!!! Mucho appreciated!

**tractor beam** · 02-22-2011, 04:55 PM

Can the bolts be retorqued and good to go, or did the bevel gears get all fouled up? I know that in my JD manuals, they say in several places to be sure to keep all hardware tightened. I suppose one should disassemble their tractors once a month and retorque everything!

Kubota512 · 02-27-2011, 06:53 PM

Update:

We bought a new seal for the left side, since that was def needed.
We removed the Bevel Gear bolts. The threads were pretty worn.
Removed the axle case housing and the bearing. Found debris here and there from wear generated by the loose bolts. Cleaned everything up best we could. Bearing looked/felt as if it had some wear, but looked like it still has some life in it.

Put everything back together, and applied a high strength thread lock on gear bolts. And btw, there was def no evidence of a thread lock ever being applied before (no surprise).
Put the right side back together (we had took oil seal cover off to check the bolts as we mentioned earlier). Added oil to axle and differential, reconnected the tie rods and put the tires back on. Fired it up and drove it around a while.

After about 3 hours of work, we found a signs of a slight leak on right side axle. We think this may be due to possible damage to the old oil seal during the removal process (We did not replace it hoping to save money), we may have to replace it depending on what we find.

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