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General Skidsteer & Technical Topics
Shop Talk
Floating Face Seals
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<blockquote data-quote="finaldriveparts" data-source="post: 95999" data-attributes="member: 13684"><p>This might be of interest ... its a blog post on final drive main seals, what happens when they fail, and what you can do to extend their useful life (and its cheap and easy, too). ========== The floating face seal is a key component in the operation of your final drive. It sits against the hub, and that seal is all that holds the bearing oil on the planetary side of your drive while it also keeps damaging contaminants out. If it isn't maintained, your final drive or travel motor will be damaged. How the Floating Face Seal Works The floating face seal goes by a few different names, such as main seal ,mechanical face seals, lifetime seals, toric rings, or dual cone seals. These seals have been designed to survive the extreme conditions encountered in construction and earth-moving equipment – but they aren't indestructible. The assembly of a floating face seal is made up of two matching halves. Each half has a seal ring (usually white iron) and toric elastomeric ring, which acts as a secondary sealing element. One face of the seal ring has been precision ground/lapped to mate with the matching face on the opposite seal ring, providing the seal. The elastomeric ring forces the two seals halves together and provides an external seal. What Happens When the Main Seal Fails A leak behind your sprocket means that the floating face seal is no longer doing its job. It is allowing the gear oil to leak out of the planetary side of your final drive, which is necessary for the lubrication of key bearings and gears. What may be even worse is that when it fails all the mud, sand, silt, dirt, dust, sludge, and debris that build up in the undercarriage and around your final drive now has access to your gears and bearings. Those contaminants mix with the gear oil and form a thick and often smelly sludge. That sludge does the opposite of lubricate the gears and bearings, leading to even worse, catastrophic damage to the final drive. That is every final drive's worst nightmare! What Causes the Floating Face Seal Failure The seals have a limited life, so it might be that the seal has limited exceeded the number of hours it was rated for. Another more common cause is that the seal was offset because of exposure to contaminants – or, in other words, so much debris got packed in around the outside of the face seals that it didn't have anywhere to go but where it could do damage. This "packing" damages the o-rings first, then after it has weakened the o-rings it forces it way between the seals and into the final drive. This results in the sludge we just talked about. Here is the rest of the post: https://www.finaldriveparts.com/1001/final-drive-floating-face-seals/</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="finaldriveparts, post: 95999, member: 13684"] This might be of interest ... its a blog post on final drive main seals, what happens when they fail, and what you can do to extend their useful life (and its cheap and easy, too). ========== The floating face seal is a key component in the operation of your final drive. It sits against the hub, and that seal is all that holds the bearing oil on the planetary side of your drive while it also keeps damaging contaminants out. If it isn’t maintained, your final drive or travel motor will be damaged. How the Floating Face Seal Works The floating face seal goes by a few different names, such as main seal ,mechanical face seals, lifetime seals, toric rings, or dual cone seals. These seals have been designed to survive the extreme conditions encountered in construction and earth-moving equipment – but they aren’t indestructible. The assembly of a floating face seal is made up of two matching halves. Each half has a seal ring (usually white iron) and toric elastomeric ring, which acts as a secondary sealing element. One face of the seal ring has been precision ground/lapped to mate with the matching face on the opposite seal ring, providing the seal. The elastomeric ring forces the two seals halves together and provides an external seal. What Happens When the Main Seal Fails A leak behind your sprocket means that the floating face seal is no longer doing its job. It is allowing the gear oil to leak out of the planetary side of your final drive, which is necessary for the lubrication of key bearings and gears. What may be even worse is that when it fails all the mud, sand, silt, dirt, dust, sludge, and debris that build up in the undercarriage and around your final drive now has access to your gears and bearings. Those contaminants mix with the gear oil and form a thick and often smelly sludge. That sludge does the opposite of lubricate the gears and bearings, leading to even worse, catastrophic damage to the final drive. That is every final drive’s worst nightmare! What Causes the Floating Face Seal Failure The seals have a limited life, so it might be that the seal has limited exceeded the number of hours it was rated for. Another more common cause is that the seal was offset because of exposure to contaminants – or, in other words, so much debris got packed in around the outside of the face seals that it didn’t have anywhere to go but where it could do damage. This “packing” damages the o-rings first, then after it has weakened the o-rings it forces it way between the seals and into the final drive. This results in the sludge we just talked about. Here is the rest of the post: https://www.finaldriveparts.com/1001/final-drive-floating-face-seals/ [/QUOTE]
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