FT404 - Spinning transmission sound at shutoff

[traktorz]

Our FT404 has now passed 140h in operation.

Lately it's been up to hard work with a forest road maintenance and replacing road tubes, including ditch digging, earth & gravel moving using the FEL.

Yesterday, after some short instance of mechanical noise during the road work, (my brother who drove the tractor couldn't exactly describe or locate from where), we noticed when power down the engine, that there was a spinning sound a couple of seconds from the transmission.

We powered down the engine with and without the 4WD engaged, but no difference. The PTO was in neutral, like also for the shuttle gear, LO and HI gear.

But when shutting off the diesel engine, and keeping the clutch disengaged, there was no spinning sound from the transmission.

We therefore conclude it's from the clutch or the gearbox entry.

Worrying it is, therefore I would like to hear from your experiences and ideas, and recommendations help to diagnose this further.

[PJ]

If the transmission was in neutral when shutting down, it might be a bearing in the transmission starting to go, but with only 140hrs on the clock, your transmission shouldn't be giving you problems, unless some foreign material got in there somehow and compromised a bearing. Make sure the shift lever adjustment hasn't changed, allowing something to rub when it's supposed to be in neutral. Be interesting to know what you find out. PJ

[r2]

Not so familiar with Foton´s, but try this.

Overfill your tranny sump with good amount of oil, a real overfill. Run the tractor trough all gears like 20 min or so, Drain to proper level again. Remember to let it "sit" for a while before you check the level again. There is a high located bearing in the gearbox witch get it' s lube by "splashing". This has maybe run dry for a while.

[traktorz]

Aug 5, 2010 8:23:58 GMT -5 PJ said:

If the transmission was in neutral when shutting down, it might be a bearing in the transmission starting to go, but with only 140hrs on the clock, your transmission shouldn't be giving you problems, unless some foreign material got in there somehow and compromised a bearing. Make sure the shift lever adjustment hasn't changed, allowing something to rub when it's supposed to be in neutral. Be interesting to know what you find out. PJ

Today, after adding 10 more hours, we didn't hear any unusual sounds. Both the Backhoe and the FEL has been doing it's job without any problems.

Aug 5, 2010 10:01:35 GMT -5 r2 said:

Not so familiar with Foton´s, but try this.

Overfill your tranny sump with good amount of oil, a real overfill. Run the tractor trough all gears like 20 min or so, Drain to proper level again. Remember to let it "sit" for a while before you check the level again. There is a high located bearing in the gearbox witch get it' s lube by "splashing". This has maybe run dry for a while.

Today, the work has been with more variety, using both LO and HI gear, and also more digging.

Yesterday, when the noise occured, that was after a longer period of using the FEL for leveling the forest road, staying with LO-1 & LO-2 gear.

Maybe a cure is to alter the load work of the tractor and occasionally also use other gears.

Tomorrow will be more digging work, but maybe not time for some deeper diagnostics. Rather greasing the zerks, and checking all the oil levels, and check/tighten bolts on the Backhoe.

I'll let you know the continuing story.

Thanks to both of you for your appreciated comments.