Even though the last time we brought up the John Deere Tractor it was probably sometime early last year, it doesn't mean that things just ended there. We have used this thing to do everything from run garbage down to the road to transporting tools and supplies to install a new mailbox to just doing general parts/materials runs between the compound and the garage. During all this time the engine continued to run as it should with all the new parts, we installed but there was one wild card that I had been ignoring, that has always been a problem is the steering. For those who have owned these lawn tractors or similar designed machines, is that the steering tends to go out due to the design of the parts in the system.
The steering utilizes a triangular gear that sweeps from side to side on a curved gear that meshes with a simple round gear on the steering shaft. Connected to either side of the triangle are the tie rods connecting to the axles to turn the wheels as intended. What ends up happening is the plastic bushing on the steering shaft wears out, causing play in the shaft. This play allows for meshing to not be complete and in turn, causes excess wear on the splines of the steering shaft gear as well as the triangle gear. Of course, the wear in the splines then causes the gears to slip and bye bye steering. This is the case, yet again, on this tractor.
I removed the pivot bolt from the "point" at the front of the triangle gear, with the intent of lowering the position of the gear relative to the steering shaft gear. Since the steering shaft gear is at an angle, the lower the triangle gear is relative to the steering shaft gear, the more the two will mesh together. In order to achieve this, I had to add a few washers between the triangle gear and the bottom of the tractor's frame, so when the bolt is put back in its place, the washers will hold the gear at the desired spacing relative to the steering shaft gear.
With the triangle gear lowered, it allowed the steering shaft gear to mesh more with the teeth of the triangle gear. Again, since the steering shaft gear is at an angle, the gear was able to mesh better as the triangle gear was lowered. I'll pretty much have to leave things like this if I want to have the chance of getting some more life out of these components since the triangle gear does have some worn down teeth. While things seem to look good, this is not the end-all to this problem. I will still have to replace the bushings on the steering shaft as well as the triangle gear, due to the fact that the teeth in the middle 1/3 of the gear are partially stripped. Even with the gears meshing better, it won't be long before the teeth on the triangle gear get stripped more and will no longer allow the steering to operate. Of course, we will need to take time to grease up everything to allow the metal on metal action to be a little smoother between the components. At least now we will have use of the John Deere Utility Tractor once again.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
May 2023
|