two entire days and I fully expected to get a lot of dirt moving done.
I quietly ate my breakfast and went down to the shop, retrieved the
key, did my prestart checks: oil check, brake fluid check, coolant
check, belt tension check, power steering fluid check... Everything
looked good so I mounted the machine while thinking about how much fun
it was going to be to wake up the valley with the sound of the tractor
springing to life.
With an evil smile on my lips I pushed in the clutch and readied my hand
to start the machine when the machine responded in kind with a fairly
healthy *BANG*! Being quite early in the morning and still somewhat
groggy myself, this sudden sound surprised me, but just as much it
confused me. Bang? What goes bang?
When troubleshooting, it's best to start at the incident and work
through it again... Ok, release the clutch, push it back in- whoosh...
no resistance on the clutch... oh no... Broke my clutch cable... again.
I succeeded in waking up my cohorts, but not with the sound of a machine
billowing out black noise in the morning sun. It was my desperate plea
to come help me strip the machine to put in our spare clutch cable.
Get out the tools, squeeze inside a dash built for a six year olds
hands, pump out the recently filled fuel tank, loosen frame brackets,
drop the tank three inches and wedge one hand past to the clutch cable
and remove it with half a finger... Got it. Now reverse the process to
install.
Four hours later I was tightening up the last bolt from underneath the
machine when I hear Jeff say: "Here comes the rain."... you've got to
be kidding me. First dry morning this year and I spend the whole work
day under the machine rather than on it. Welcome to Kaiam.
Good news was that my clutch cable repair still looks to be in the same
shape as when I installed it. However, the same can't be said for the
reused bracket that holds the cable to the peddle. Still, this repair
day turned out to be much better than the three days it took to get the
machine up and running when the cable broke last time.
2 comments:
If I was at work, the management would ask "What is the root cause of this failure?", and they would hold me to finding an answer. As I look at the part, I see you're "beefed up" cable did not break, but the bracket that holds it did.
This tells me that there must be excessive force being applied to this mechanism. My first question is 1. Does it "over-travel" it's range of motion and allow your "strong foot" to hit end (of the cable) before it stops? Is there an adjustment of the clutch pedal for a physical stop before putting all the pressure on the cable?
There's always the possibility the part is just poorly designed and underbuilt--but those would be the questions I'd start with to find "root cause".
Hope you can keep the equipment going and get a lot done! God's Blessings to all!
Love, Dad
The "root" cause of the failure was probably the fact that the clutch
cable had a break in the liner that apparently happened on install of
the cable from the factor. Thusly (you are correct) it had much too
much force required to press the clutch down. Being new, we just
assumed this was a "tight" clutch. Due to that extra resistance in the
liner it would change angle on release which caused a kink that I
"removed" with that drilled out bar stock, but I couldn't resolve the
broken liner. (when you move that cable around, it makes a nice
"popping/catching" noise right in the middle) Now that the new cable
has been installed, I feel like my left leg is going to atrophy due to
the small force required when pushing in the peddle.
Also, when Anton was ordering the clutch cable the first time. The guy
he talked to said he's been ordering a lot of these for people that own
this tractor, and the same report was received from some other people
that recommended this tractor to Anton and Dr. Steve. The parts guy
said it was "operator error" that the cable broke. To which our
response was: "Wha-?!?!" Down, up, down, up... shouldn't break. Travel
looks good, bottoms out on the floor, not the cable.
Interestingly enough, when the new cable came it has a different
design. The little bracket that broke this time doesn't exist and the
cable is long enough to stretch directly to the point where this bracket
would attache, thusly eliminating that problem... And, since we didn't
kink the cable when installing it, there's no break in the cable, so we
should get many more hours of use out of this cable... I'm hoping...
Because I don't want to have to do this again in another 250 hours!
Another thought on your "strong foot" idea... I'm the only one that it's
broken on, so I might look into this pedal stop idea a little more... I
know I slam clutches down to the floor when shifting... always have.
Never had this problem of broken cables before though. Boaz's legs are
too short to reach the floor consistently (the cable is a little on the
tight side, on purpose on this install, so you only move the peddle
about 3/4" before the clutch engages) and I can't recall how Anton
drives it.
and for the record, I'm very proud of that "beefed up" cable!
Thanks for the suggestions. It's up and running again, though the rain
says that I don't work so hard... ;-)
Paul
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