I've got a bobcat 323 that has clearly seen better days. The "hub" that bolts to the sprocket can easily be moved by hand after jacking it up on a sturdy block. Looking like a bad / worn seal took out the bearings. Has anyone ever tried to replace just the bearings & races & seals, of course? BTW, the drive motor was operating just perfect.
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I have never opened up a final drive, but if it was running well before, i can't see why you can't replace the seals and bearings. I thought the main issue was when they ran dry, they chewed up the internals, THEN you were in deep poo.
Well, it is interesting that kind of already happened. It quit traveling while in use one day. Upon opening the cover, there was a TON of sand & gritty junk in there. Among all of that stuff was a rather small ALUMINUM gear that was completely shredded. It would appear that one little gear suffered the brunt of all of the damage, causing the final to not travel at all on that side. So, upon cleaning everything up as thoroughly as possible: without tearing it completely apart, we replaced the destroyed gear & topped off the gear oil. The very next day a decent size puddle of oil was under that final drive area. Upon further inspection, a TON of play was found in the bearings leading to the seal failure & the puddle of oil. So, now the gear section of the final drive has been completely taken apart & cleaned thoroughly. It seems as if we might have to just replace both bearings, a seal & an O-ring. BOBCAT wants around $500+ for just one bearing & another $300+ for the other. The seal & O-ring seem far more reasonably priced in comparison, though. That is where we stand right now.
Not the news i wanted to hear, surely you can get bearings from other places than the dealer, talk to abearing supply company, they have to get better prices than the dealer has.
If there is no gear damage, i see no reason why new bearings and seals won't fix it.
I agree. I tried to get to a bearing warehouse, but everything just kept getting in the way = typical.
I know what you mean, too much to do, not enough hours in the day.
My dad is great for those jobs, he knows veryone everywhere. If i need a part, he either knows someone, or he knows where to start looking. There is a limit of how much you can find with google
Well, I plan on getting these bearing to the bearing warehouse so they will hopefully be identified easily. I am placing a ton of hope on them being able to simply measure them with a micrometer & hopefully have them on the parts shelf in the back of the warehouse for far cheaper than what the "stealership" wants for them. I am certain that someone will most likely take offense to the "stealership" reference, but these bearings should not cost more than three months of car payments, ya know? I am hoping to be able to pass along some great bearing part numbers if I am successful in my search.I know what you mean, too much to do, not enough hours in the day.
My dad is great for those jobs, he knows veryone everywhere. If i need a part, he either knows someone, or he knows where to start looking. There is a limit of how much you can find with google
The "stealership" is a necessary evil, some parts are very reasonable, others really aren't.
When i needed pump parts for a 763, my local dealer wanted over 2k per rotating group PLUS tax. I don't know the exact figure, but i thought i got them from LPS for 400 each? The dealer will buy these parts direct from the manufacturer i'd think. LPS i'd suspect would buy them off a wholesaler, so one more step in the process, each step comes mark up, it's how business works. How can they justify charging more than 5 times what LPS sold them to me for?
With that said, filters are very reasonable, some times they are even cheaper than you can get them from the local truck/auto store for.
Every business needs to make money to be there when you need them, but there is an acceptable price, and one that is just robbery. I have never taken my car to a dealer for repairs, i have had to buy genuine parts before, so they still do get some money from time to time.
UPDATE: I found a local dealer can get these bearings for $225, or so. I'm still not going to say these two (2) bearings are not any different from each other, but at that price, I should be saving around $700 on just the bearings. Not TOO shabby, Huh?? I will let you know how they work out when I have them installed.
Glad you got a deal on the bearings, $700 in savings just on bearings is a good deal, i just hope it all works out well.
