Removing a D hub

[tommyg 152]

Is it seriously that hard to remove the hub on a D? I figured while I was doing some other work that put the tractor out of commission, I would pull the hub on the one side and replace a leaking seal. Put on a puller, loosened the square headed locking bolts and started cranking away. It moved fairly easily for about an inch and a half then got so tight I was afraid I'd bust it! Decided to put it back on and it took a monumental effort to get it back to the starting point. Ended up damaging the lip of the hub. Had to use a sledge hammer. Someone please tell me that it's really hard to do any damage to the tranny by wacking that hub back on! Still don't have the seal off and now I have to replace the hub once I finally get it off.

[coldone 35]

Mine was a bear! Puller and a hammer, tighten the puller, bang on the puller with the hammer. Mine only moved 16th of an inch at a time.

PS. there is a set of hubs on ebay

[tommyg 152]

OK, at least I'm not forgetting something stupid. Kind of make those lock nuts a bit of overkill. Like the thing will fall off going around a bend or something. I'll check ebay. I looked earlier and didn't see anything. Maybe I missed it.

[JamesBe1 82]

Pretty standard story getting a hub off. I hear lots of people have problems. Some people have resorted to cutting theirs off.

I am sure that there must be something that you can put on it when you put it back together to make it easier next time.

[Trouty56 567]

Paul got his off....check this out.....

[pfrederi 17,848]

Yes you can create problems inside during hub pulling....the snap ring on my axle came off, I think at some point in the past some one else had tried to remove the hub and stressed the snap ring and wallowed out teh groove in the axle somewhat. My hub removal efforts finished the job.

[JamesBe1 82]

I had the snap ring come off in the trans of my C-120. Same deal, groove was worn and the outward thrust of the axle allowed the snap ring to rid up and off of the axle. It was my first experience into 8-sp transmissions. Scary, but educational.

Ended up having to replace the axle. What a waste.

[wheeledhorseman 574]

OK, at least I'm not forgetting something stupid. Kind of make those lock nuts a bit of overkill. Like the thing will fall off going around a bend or something.

I'll let you know Tommy - I've left the set screws loose on one of my hubs deliberately to see if it will loosen the hub for me. To explain......

Having made up a puller I managed to get the first hub off with some difficulty. As has been said it was a matter of achieving a tiny movement at a time. Having got the hub off the surfaces were clean as a whistle - no rust whatsoever so I investigated the cause.

It was down to the fact that the two set screws had been tightened down so hard they had punched well into the axle causing the axle surface to deform effectively mushrooming round the indentation. It was only a tiny amount just a couple of thou but the deformations made by the two screws were enough that there was no way the hub would have gone back on without the same huge force needed to remove it.

I patiently and carefully removed the 'humps' using a medium to fine grit abrasive paper wrapped round a piece of ground flat steel. As it removed the steel the extent of the deformation in terms of area became apparent. Having removed the 'bumps' the hub slid on and off the axle as it should.

The second hub absolutely refused to budge even with a beefed up version of the puller. I was applying so much force that there was a real danger (to my mind) of cracking the hub. Fortunately the side I manged to remove had the worst oil leak from the seal, the side I couldn't remove had just the tell-tale traces of a leak beginning so I left it for now and that's why I may be able to answer the question as I've left the set screws loose i.e. not in contact with the axle at all but the lock nuts are done up so I won't (hopefully) lose the set screws.

I'm kind of hoping that with a few months of use it may just loosen up enough to manage to pull it - I'll let you know.

Andy

[tommyg 152]

I had the snap ring come off in the trans of my C-120. Same deal, groove was worn and the outward thrust of the axle allowed the snap ring to rid up and off of the axle. It was my first experience into 8-sp transmissions. Scary, but educational.

Ended up having to replace the axle. What a waste.

Yes you can create problems inside during hub pulling....the snap ring on my axle came off, I think at some point in the past some one else had tried to remove the hub and stressed the snap ring and wallowed out teh groove in the axle somewhat. My hub removal efforts finished the job.

What a couple of prophetic statements! As I was finishing up removing the remaining hub,guess what fell off? Yep! The snapring. Good grief, this project has gone from bad to worse! After closer inspection, I realized that the damage done to the grove is too great. I'm going to have to replace both axles if I want to ensure that this job is successful for the long haul. If anyone has any laying around, let me know. Looks like I'll be cutting the yard with the push mower for awhile. Grrrr.

[wheeledhorseman 574]

Sorry to hear the news but don't give up were all routing for you!

Kind of makes me glad I left the stubborn hub on mine as a future job though. I do kind of wonder though if they got the hardness right on the axles what with the snap ring issue and the way the set screw can mushroom the axle as I found on mine.

I was looking back at the work meadowfield did on the tranny of his GT14 just now for another reason and noted a comment he made about the fact that if the hubs wouldn't pull off the axles he was going to try splitting the differential so that the axles could then be pressed out of the hubs. Is this a practical / viable alternative for future reference?

Thoughts anyone.

Andy

[tommyg 152]

Andy, if I had to do it all over again, this is the route I would take. In my case, the only reason I needed to remove the hubs was to replace the seal. The simpler solution would have been to split the transmission, disassemble the differential and slide out the axles from the other end. It would have saved me a TON of work and frustration. It would have also saved my axles. Disassembling the differential really was no big deal. But you know what they say about hind sight. It's always 20/20.

So, the moral of the story is... Unless you've had your hubs off at one point, and your hubs are sound, I would tear apart the transmission and remove them from the inside out. I learned the hard way.

On a positive note, Jdog has a pair of axles and also bailed me out with a pair of hubs along with the filter screen. I told him he's going to become part owner pretty soon! Oh, and he also said this is how he removes the hubs. Generally, he just destroys the axles by cutting them off and presses it out if the hub.

[tommyg 152]

One thought though Andy, would you crack the case then just press it out with everything kind of still hooked together? I don't see how you could do it any other way. That would be an interesting press set up.

[JamesBe1 82]

Wow, sorry to hear that Tommy. Is it possible to remove the clip from the axle and slide the axle out of the housing once you get the trans split?

Just wondering that if that is the case, it would make a potential route for working on stubborn hubs in the future.

As to the worn snapring groove. Can you post a couple of pics of the axle and groove area? I wonder if there isn't a way to salvage the axle.

[wheeledhorseman 574]

One thought though Andy, would you crack the case then just press it out with everything kind of still hooked together? I don't see how you could do it any other way. That would be an interesting press set up.

No, I think I'd release and slide the axles out as you've described then put them in the press to get the hubs off.

Why take the hubs off? Well I guess it's just me but with the one hub I got off with a puller to replace the seal, I just wouldn't put it back until I'd got it so that it would glide onto the axle with a bit of grease just as it would have at the factory. The seal will probably not need replacing again in my lifetime but if I did need to get the hub off for some reason in the future I'd kick myself for not freeing it off while I had the chance. Also, using brute force to get it back onto the axle could, I would think, just as easily damage the snap ring.

At the moment the other seal isn't leaking so the job can wait but I'll have to bite the bullet one day!

Good news though that your back on track.

Andy

[tommyg 152]

Wow, sorry to hear that Tommy. Is it possible to remove the clip from the axle and slide the axle out of the housing once you get the trans split?

Just wondering that if that is the case, it would make a potential route for working on stubborn hubs in the future.

Here's the rub... One hub has to come off in order to do that. You have to get to the differential gear, remove the 4 bolts tying it all together, then it would work. So in theory, If you can get one off and not the other, then that's the route to go before you booger something up.

As to the worn snapring groove. Can you post a couple of pics of the axle and groove area? I wonder if there isn't a way to salvage the axle.

I kind of reassembled it for now to see how it worked. The snap ring might stay on. Might not. Who wants to take that chance? The groove was damaged toward the differential end of the shaft. The other one is also damaged, but the metal is still there, just kind of mangled. I was able to kind of mold it back into shape by tapping lightly with a hammer. So, that one would probably work. But at this point, I'm replacing both.

[metalhead0920 10]

Oh man, now I'm getting stressed reading these, I decided to just pop the hub off my old 1077 cause one of the wheel studs was bbn broken off inside the thread. A little wd40 and some tapping with a hammer and it was off. I didn't have to hammer it hard but I did hit it a bit. Could I have caused some damage internally?