I'm trying to service the driveshaft on a 1995-vintage MD70 CTL.
I saw one of these in action, and was so impressed with the controls that I bought one. 1400 hours. Ran great and everything worked.
But it turned out that it had bad bearings on the left front torsion bar axle. Bad meaning no roller cages or rollers. Just a shaft banging around in the bore.
So it sat for long enough for the desert critters to nest in it and pack everything under the hood and cowl full of mesquite pods, cholla burrs and droppings.
I finally got it all cleaned out and tackled the bearing issue.
Pulled the track, pulled the carriage off, cleaned up the axle and bore, replaced all 3 sets of torsion axle inner/outer bearings, greased everything (62 bearings and 34 grease points !!!) on both carriages, and remounted the repaired carriage & track.
Now I'm trying to grease the u-joints on the drive shaft. I pulled the seat and seat plate and greased the spline and the u-joint at the pump drive.
But I don't see an easy way to access the zerk on the u-joint at the engine-end of the drive shaft.
It looks like pulling the engine with the engine-end drive flange and driven-spline still attached would work.
But that's a lot of effort.
Is there a better way?
I saw one of these in action, and was so impressed with the controls that I bought one. 1400 hours. Ran great and everything worked.
But it turned out that it had bad bearings on the left front torsion bar axle. Bad meaning no roller cages or rollers. Just a shaft banging around in the bore.
So it sat for long enough for the desert critters to nest in it and pack everything under the hood and cowl full of mesquite pods, cholla burrs and droppings.
I finally got it all cleaned out and tackled the bearing issue.
Pulled the track, pulled the carriage off, cleaned up the axle and bore, replaced all 3 sets of torsion axle inner/outer bearings, greased everything (62 bearings and 34 grease points !!!) on both carriages, and remounted the repaired carriage & track.
Now I'm trying to grease the u-joints on the drive shaft. I pulled the seat and seat plate and greased the spline and the u-joint at the pump drive.
But I don't see an easy way to access the zerk on the u-joint at the engine-end of the drive shaft.
It looks like pulling the engine with the engine-end drive flange and driven-spline still attached would work.
But that's a lot of effort.
Is there a better way?
