Adjusting skidsteer drive chains 

Lmfao I thought the same. Wtf was the point of that?

Thanks. Rest assured the next time I make a video having to do with maintenance on this thing I will go into plenty of detail about exactly what I'm doing lol.

The manual calls for 165 to 190 foot pounds on the axle mounting nuts. There is a large o-ring that gets sandwiched between the axle housing and side of the chain case so it doesn't leak regardless of where you slide it.

@@AlwaysBored123 Perfect! Adjusted mine today tanks to you!! I appreciate your help!

The manual recommends 10w-30 engine oil (same as in the hydraulic system) but honestly anything thicker than diesel fuel is fine. I reuse old oil from the hydraulic system for the chain cases when I change it. It doesn't take a huge amount just two gallons or so per side. Just enough for the chains to dip through it as they go around.

​@@AlwaysBored123. I am getting a grinding noise and sometimes it feels like it's stuck in gear when I try to turn the motor over if I get it just right it'll fire up the machine is not wanting to go to the right or forward or backwards with the left hand control it'll go to the left find and it's real fidgety I replaced the bushing on the left hand side t-handle where you grease them the plastic bushing or whatever was there I replaced it with a piece of steel and cut it to size and made it to where I can grease it and that's 100 times better but I still can't figure out why it's making a grinding noise and it doesn't want to go to the right or straight or forward off the left hand side t-handle control is it something in the drive motor itself not enough hydraulic fluid what is it

Yes the axle housings have oil in them that splashes in from the chaincase as the chains go around. I didn't show it because I didn't take the housing off but there is large oring that seals the space between the axle housing and frame yours may be bad.

Yes you can. When I did this the only impact wrench I had wasn't powerful enough to break the nuts loose so I had to do it by hand.

Yeah you can't beat it. No tensioners, idlers, or adjusters to fuss with. Just three sprockets and two enormous chains.

Typically they will have two chains on each side for a total of four. Some machines have more though.

Yeah wheeled skid steers struggle on pavement unless they have solid tires. Have to make very gradual turns to avoid grabbing and hopping.

From what I can tell that is a common complaint with those units. They use constant displacement hydraulic pumps for the drives so its very difficult to precisely vary the amount of fluid that is sent to the drive motors. Your best best is probably to treat the drive controls like a mechanical clutch. That is keep it all the way on or off and then control the speed with the foot throttle.

That's just a high-lift jack or farm jack.

Which one? I made a video on changing the axle shaft bearings here, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sGVoekgzrWk.html If it's the output bearing on the hydraulic motor I'm actually not sure how you change it. It will depend on what kind of motor it is for sure.

Yes it did.

No I just cleaned them off and reused them.

@@AlwaysBored123 nice thanks I read some other comments and one u replied to it helped me understand that that big hub axel for the wheel connection thing is a housing for the stuff inside u worked on im hoping I got that much correct

Oh I did I just didn't bother filming it. I still haven't changed the other side though lol.

Sorry to let you down lol. My goal was just to give people an idea of the general process since it's virtually identical on every skid steer (Bobcat being the main exception). I didn't see the point in going into detail because that would only have been useful to people working on this specific machine. But since you asked this is a 2006 Case 430. Water gets into the cases primarily by condensing out of the air that's inside them. There's a lot of air and only a small amount of oil. It can also flood in if you submerge the cases of course but hopefully you don't do that. The hub nuts should be tightened to between 165-190ft lbs. The deflection of each chain should be between 0.12" and 0.50" (I just eyeballed it).

AlwaysBored I was a bit hard on you and came back to soften it up a bit. My frustration is finding out some basic information on my 2010 318D John Deere skid steer and the chain cases. I bought this machine used so trying to make up for years of poor maintenance and neglect. I had been planning on getting into the chain cases today which I did after changing the engine oil. I opened the fill plug and was greeted by emulsified oil way above the normal fill level at the threads of the plug. I let this excess drain out of both sides and decided it was best to stop at this point and think about what I was doing. I have a seep in the right rear hub to body that I knew about and bought replacement O rings for the four hubs. Having heard the clicking from the chain a week or so ago I figured I needed to adjust the chain tension and to do that requires loosening the hubs and sliding them to tighten the chains. So here I am desperately looking for information. My main concern is where all that water came from, maybe two quarts over the fill level. Is there a vent to relieve pressure in the chain cases and if so where is it? If there is a vent does washing the machine introduce water into the chain cases? Two quarts is far too much for condensation if it is a sealed system. In this case torque values vary between machines so using your values on my machine is not recommended or on any other machine other than your year, type and model. John Deere is not very forth coming of information for the do it yourself guys, I hate um. Their manuals suck ass and getting ones hands on the correct one I need is proving to be fruitless so far having bought two so far but no information on what I need to know. I had a John Deere Technician come out to the house to give the machine the once over to make sure things were up to snuff. He found a broken wire that prevented the aux hydraulic system from working so that is good to go now. He adjusted the controls so it did not track to the left, replaced a fuse which was the initial reason for the call. The fuses where right where the manual said they were but under rubber covers that looked just like relays. I am the type that when unsure I stop and get further information, to continue when unsure is always very expensive. Speaking of expensive that house call cost me 2k, thank you very much and three bags full. A very expensive educational experience to be sure, I can’t afford too many of those. My mechanical experience is mainly with motorcycles over many years specifically Ducati. I can change my own belts and most routine stuff like clutches and in tank fuel pumps but I know when to stop. There is another guy on RU-vid that is draining his cases and the same emulsified oil gushes out. He just laughs and gives no information other than you can use a crescent wrench to remove the drain plug, that is it. In your case nobody needs or wants to watch you clean your shop, wasted footage. I am trying to be helpful right now not just nit picking your video. There are guys out here just like me that are really struggling to get good information. I do not have the computer skills like you do or I would post up my own so I like many others depend on tech savvy guys like you. I am not a troll just trying to bust your bubble so take what I say like I was the fun uncle. :)

@@TheSagerider No worries I completely empathize with that. I can't count the numbers of times I've been trying to find useful info on here only to be frustrated with time wasting nonsense. I honestly thought this subject was fairly simple but reading all that made me realize what kind of info I could have provided about it. If your chaincases were nearly full it couldn't have come from condensation. It may be that someone purposely overfilled them or, worst case scenario, it could be that your drive motors are leaking into the cases and slowly filling them up. I'm not very familiar with JD skid steers. I understand they have a pretty good reputation but, as you've seen, they charge a lot for it. The torque specifications for the hub bolts is not a critical value. If John Deere wants to be stingy about it I would feel fine using a generic torque value for a grade 8 fastener of whatever size yours are. I highly doubt there is a vent in your chaincases. They don't get hot enough or contain enough oil to warrant one like a gearbox does. The best place I know of to get help is www.heavyequipmentforums.com. It's incredible some of the obscure problems people find help with on there. Much less the routine stuff lol.

AlwaysBored Now we’re cooking with gas! The heavy equipment forums is the cats ass! From what I have found just in a quick look getting water in the chain cases is not all that uncommon. What I am going to do is drain both sides, pull the hubs and replace the O rings on all four hubs. The studs have O rings on the inside and will look at replacing those as well. The inspection plates look to be sealed but why take the chance they’re not so I will pull those too and reseal them which will aid in cleaning the cases out as well. At reassembly the proper chain adjustment looks to be no more than 1/4” play at the tire surface. That sounds like a really bad place to take a measurement but in most cases you would check before you pull the wheels. I am thinking tight at the hubs but not overly so but I will check the tire surface on the first one to see how that works out. I can also make a tool that fits to the wheel studs that will corespondent to the tire diameter so I won’t have to mount the wheel to check, sort of like a pointer. Thank you ever so much for the link! :) yes, I will subscribe to your channel just because. BTW before I retired I was into NDE, non destructive examination, specifically using remote cameras and robotics inside nuclear reactors. Everything was recorded with audio commentary on every component examined. As a Level III I was on the the Level IIs like white on rice about proper terminology, professionalism while commenting regarding what was being examined, how the examination progressed and what equipment was employed. I was a serious pain in their ass but we produced the finest, most through and professional examinations in the world. Thanks again!

@@AlwaysBored123 and the bolt, which tightens the shaft with the pinion, what torque does it carry?

It’s pretty self evident what he is doing. He opened up the access panel, verified the chain was too loose, loosened up the rear tire/axle housing mounting bolts, used a jack to push the housing back - tightening the chain, then he tightened things back up and put gasket sealer on the access panel and closed it up.

If you click on the little speaker icon in the bottom-left corner of the video that will get rid of the music.

No such ikon on my device

dude takes the time to post a repair video and you complain about the music? mute the sound dumbass

@@cbly Sir, beware of your language, it reflects your inner self. Best Regards