Here's one to chew on. .the "new" D4 has a stuck steering clutch. I've dumped diesel in, adjusted ALL takeup out, tied the lever back and run it while stomping on the brake. Nada! Then I drove it down behind the house and rammed a 1 1/2' lodgepole pine several times. Shook the tree, jarred me and the track dug a ditch. Zilch!

Looking down in there, I can see the edge of a disc almost protruding from the basket (see attached pic), while in the side that does work the edge of a disk is about 1/4" inside the basket. Could rusting from sitting for years have caused the disks to have swollen THAT much:confused: ?? You can see how much everything else rusted as there was NO oil or grease inside. .GOOD seals, dammit!

As soon as the manuals I ordered get here I think it may be time for a teardown. Are there any hints/ pitfalls to this? I'd just as soon learn from someone else what NOT to do before I do it. I can make enough mistakes on my own.

Well I see that you are retired so you,ll have all the time to work on your tractor now. After we retire we can do the same amount of work as we did before retiring but it takes twice as long to do it.Well I hope you get your steering clutch problem worked out.We never really had to deal with frozen clutches as our work at the shop were machines being run all the time & didn,t set & rust things fast.

Hi ol grump,
Tear down is pretty straight forward but you will have to start by removing the winch so's you can get the cross shafts out of the way.

That maybe sticking out because somebody has put to many discs in that side and I've never seen rust push something out like that. Maybe that's your problem, to many discs in that clutch. catskinner

Yup, seen em get that fat. Only thing that stopped em was the springs bottomed out and you have to torch all the springs off to get them apart. Too many discs would surely add to the problem.

Thanks all. I'd been hoping to get away easy and not have to tear this thing down but oh well. .that's the way the pickle quirts:eek: . OM? I looked some more and I can't figure out what you meant about taking the winch off. There are winch supports on each side that bolt to the transmission cover and winch but I couldn't see anything down inside that would keep that cross shaft/ clutch shaft from coming out the top. Doesn't the winch drive off the rear of transmission countershaft similar to the D2 winch?

I'm referring to the trunnion shafts for the steering clutch throw out linkage. The shafts going for and aft that come out the back of the bevel gear case so the bevel gear shaft and steering clutch assembly can be lifted out.

'k. .NOW I see what you were referring to! This is starting to sound a lot like an old Series 1 Land Rover I had.To work on or replace just about anything, half the rig had to be taken apart. Makes me wonder if Cat engineers started out in the Land Rover factory:eek:

Guess it's time to roll up my sleeves, fire up the backhoe and start on the winch. .hopefully there aren't any surprises there too. .