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LT40 UP/DOWN Gear box

Started by ARKANSAWYER, April 02, 2006, 02:40:10 PM

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ARKANSAWYER


   I was just wondering how many others have hulled out an UP/DOWN  gear box on a LT40?  It was full of synthetic gear oil and about 3 table spoons of "glitter" in the bottom.    Bet I had better be sitting down Monday when I order that puppy. 

    So, any others? 
ARKANSAWYER

jpgreen

Haven't got into that yet...  :o
-95 Wood-Mizer LT40HD 27 Hp Kawasaki water cooled engine-

Tom

mines still working, I think.

New Inn Wood Man

Sometimes the head kinda jumps down rather than a smooth action. I usually give the head chain a dose of oil and it seems to go away. What was your symtom? :)

Percy

Quote from: ARKANSAWYER on April 02, 2006, 02:40:10 PM

       Bet I had better be sitting down Monday when I order that puppy. 

    
I dunno, I hink you might be pleasantly surprized, I seen a gearbox at Princess Auto that wudda worked in my old LT40 for a hunnert and twenty nine bucks Canadian....which is...uhhhh... like 8 bucks or sumpthin U.S. ;D
GOLDEN RULE : The guy with the gold, makes the rules.

ARKANSAWYER



  The head came down fine but got slower and slower going up Wednesday.  Then Thursday morning it started popping the breaker button.   SO I ordered brushes for the motor over night and went to hauling logs and bucking.  Parts came in Friday afternoon  and sure enought the brushes in the motor were worn slap out.  Put in the new brushes Sat morning and hit the up switch and the worst sound came from the grear box.  (engine was not running and the cover was off)   It did go up faster but the sound was very bad.  Tore the gear box out and opened it up and  :o :o :o :o.

  Now for just under $300 or 1,500 bdft of sawing I have a new gear box coming overnight from Indy.  I lose that much every day I do not saw.   You just have to figure that in all the times that the head went up and down something had to wear out.
ARKANSAWYER

jpgreen

Those WoodMizers... what a ripp off.

You think you coulda got at least 2.5 million board feet out of the gear box.. sheesh..  ::) :D
-95 Wood-Mizer LT40HD 27 Hp Kawasaki water cooled engine-

MULE_MAN

     This is probably one for the record book, Arky your probably the only

one that have sawed enough to actually wear one out !!  :D  :D  :D  ;)  ;D

I wonder is there's a prize for that  ???
Wood-Mizer LT40HDG25 with Simple Setworks, debatker, 580 CASE backhoe

Curlywoods

Wanda has been one good ol' gal!  I would imagine if she went belly up tomorrow, she has more than paid for herself!
All the best,

Michael Mastin
McKinney Hardwood Lumber
McKinney, TX

W

Yup, mine went last year.  didn't know if I'd be able to pack it up to get it to the shop.  I was stuck in the dudes driveway, blocking myself in and him out.  i took the belt off and the gear box was locked.  after a little fiddling some pieces of the 'glitter' fell away and i was able to stow the head and get it back to the shop.  the cage in one of the bearings gave away and got ground up and stuck in the teeth.  getting the gear box out was probably the worst part of the repair.  i think i bought the bearing at a local bearing supplier.  a couple of bucks.

scy

DR_Buck

Had mine replaced by WM this past summer with only 250 hours on the mill.   :(     The head kept slowing on the up swing and popped the breakers.    I thought it was lube issue or something out of alignment.   Just so happened I had scheduled the WM road service for the following week anyway to get Setworks installed.    While he was here the tech replaced everything related to the gearbox with no changes in symptoms.   Finally swapped out the gearbox and all was OK.
Been there, done that.   Never got caught [/b]
Retired and not doing much anymore and still not getting caught

woodbowl

Mine is about gone as well, but there is close to 10,000 on it. It is still going for the moment. I've got the new one in but haven't had time to put it on. If it goes out, I'll probably have time to put it on then.  ::)
Full time custom sawing at the customers site since 1995.  WoodMizer LT40 Super Hyd.

Tom

I wonder why mine lasted so long?  Would it be lubrication?  I was told to put Dexron III Mercon in there and not run the chains too tight.

Percy

Quote from: Tom on April 03, 2006, 10:30:53 PM
I wonder why mine lasted so long?  Would it be lubrication?  I was told to put Dexron III Mercon in there and not run the chains too tight.
I think you might be right  on the "too tight chain" condition. When I first got my LT40, I was always going down too far when setting up for traveling and wrecking the bottom chain anchor. I did a mod where I put a valve spring offa some old lawn mower engine to keep the chains consistantly tight and have a bit of lee-way when  clampin the head down for travel.  ;D
GOLDEN RULE : The guy with the gold, makes the rules.

DR_Buck



QuoteI did a mod where I put a valve spring offa some old lawn mower engine to keep the chains consistantly tight and have a bit of lee-way when  clampin the head down for travel.

Percy,

I'd be interested in seeing a picture of what you're talking about.
Been there, done that.   Never got caught [/b]
Retired and not doing much anymore and still not getting caught

MartyParsons

DR Buck you already have the spring on the up down chain. WM put these on on the G7.01 revision mills. You have a J6 revision.
I think I have heard of 3 up down gear boxes fail. Most have had high hours.
     Wood-Mizer recomends changing this gear box synthetic oil every year or 5000 hours. The oil we recomend is Mobile SHC 634 Synthetic part # L04869-4 it is in 8 ounce bottles you will need at least two.
Chain tension should be set at 3/4" deflection with 5 lbs of force

I dont think it would be wise to put in Dextron III in the gear box.  ???
"A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty." -Winston Churchill

ARKANSAWYER


  I changed out the oil that came in the gear box at about 100 hours to a synthetic oil.  I have not touched it since.   I have never adjusted the chain since I have had the mill.  I do lube it weekly with ATF as well as the pads which I have had to adjust once.   When traveling down dirt roads (which I do alot) I wipe everything off before I move the head.
  Glad to know that I am not the only one to tear up a steel wedge in a sand pile. ;D
ARKANSAWYER

VA-Sawyer

I had the output shaft fail on my gearbox. Had to buy a new one a year ago Jan. I have already changed out the oil as per the factory suggested interval. Used the recommended oil from WM.

Marty- I think maybe you meant to say 500 hours didn't you ?

VA-Sawyer

MartyParsons

VA- Sawyer,
I checked again it says 5000 hours or yearly which ever comes first.  ???
Marth
"A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty." -Winston Churchill

VA-Sawyer

Marty,
I double checked my manual, you are correct, it says 5000 hours or every year. Pretty interesting when you consider that there are only 2000 working hours per year. If you ran the mill 24/7 for 365 days straight it would be only 8700 hours.  Seems to me like something just doesn't add up. 

When sawing by myself, I tend to do a lot of 'stack' sawing, so my gearbox gets a pretty good workout. For the 150-200 hrs per year I put on my mill, I think once a year is enough, but if I were sawing over a thousand hrs per year, I think I would change the oil twice a year.  From my experience, it tends to be cheaper to change oil too often rather than not often enough.
    I modified the mounting plate for my gearbox by drilling a 5/8" hole in line with the drain plug and installing a short 1/4" pipe nipple in the drain hole. Now I can drain and change the oil without removing the gearbox from its mount. 
VA-Sawyer


Minnesota_boy

I guess I'll be the next one to replace that up/down gear box.  I knew that mine was going as it began occasionally tripping the circuit breaker when returning the head and raising it at the same time, but I was putting off the replacement until I finished the job I'm on since it's 40 miles one way and I'm sure to be missing a tool that I need.  Today I sawed 2 logs and it was working as usual.  I loaded another and went to raise th head to make the next opening cut and it wouldn't go up.  When I tried down it jerked and snapped.  Removed the access cover and tried turning the pulley by hand.  Won't go up at all and doesn't want to go down all that well either.  Gearbox on order overnight delivery.  Will try fixing it in the field tomorrow or Wednesday, whenever the parts arrive.  :'(
I eat a high-fiber diet.  Lots of sawdust!

woodbowl

I have an unusual problem and I thought it was my gearbox. In the rush to fix a slow "up", I ordered a WM gearbox for my LT40. In the mean time I found the real problem which was the worn brushes in the 1/2 hp motor. Everything was back to normal. That was last year and my new gearbox has been sitting around ever since. The other day I decided to put on the new gearbox anyway, since I already had it.
     It won't work! ......  It barely creeps up, but will come down OK. After trying several things including direct wires from the battery, I am at a loss as to why my old box will work but the new one won't. I took it back off and put the old one back on and PRESTO it was going up again. I had also placed the two boxes side by side to feel the difference in the resistance of the rotation of the shafts. My old box does not feel especially loose and the new box does feel a little firm, but not unusually firm. I would expect it to be more firm. I think something marginal could be going on. The firmness of the new box should not be near enough to slow down a new motor, but that little extra is enough to bog my old motor with relitively new brushes. Just my idea. I've heard of a way to test the strength of the motor by taking the belt off and grabbing it with a glove while it is running. If you can stop it with out a great amount of resistance, the motor may be the culpret.
    I can stop it without any problem, but I still don't want to think that it is the motor, or if it is that it can't be fixed somhow. A $250 dollar bill will fix it with a new one, but at the moment my 250's are limited. Has anyone done this test or had problems simular to this?   ........   HELP!
Full time custom sawing at the customers site since 1995.  WoodMizer LT40 Super Hyd.

onionman

Check all of your conections witth a volt meter for high resistance.may have coroded/broken strands in the connectors. contacs on the drum switch ?
I have had problems like this before (not on sawmills) where I was getting voltage, but not enough current was getting through to make things work right.
Onion

Flurida_BlackCreek

I'm gonna through something completely off the wall out. Mine was going slow in both directions but it was the idler sprockets. The bearing were locking up.
I'm happy anywhere south of the mason-dixon line.
-- cdb

MemphisLogger

Thanks, guys. I think my mill read this thread when I wasn't looking  >:(

Went to sawing up one of my 15,000 year old logs yesterday and my up/down stopped working  :'(

Of course I immediately started cussin' and kickin' myself in the rear, thinkin' it was my gear box and how I shoulda changed that oil as soon as I read Arky's initial post. I wish I disn't wear steel toes all the time  :-X

Fortunately it was just a broken chain  :-\

A quick call to Woodmizer told me the exact length and size (#40). They quoted me a price for the replacements but understood when I told I really needed to go get 'em local so I could get back sawin'

Local motion supplier got me the chains for about the same price that Woodmizer quoted reconfirming what I've always known--Woodmizer is totally fair on the price of their parts. Had to buy a whole quart of the gear oil even though it really only needs 16 ounces--man that stuff is 'spensive--$27  :o

Gonna break and make the chains this morning--maybe post some pics of it tonight.

Once again, the FF provided totally timely and essential information to compliment all the "useless" info it's accompanied by.  ;D

And, once again, Woodmizer impressed me with their fabulous customer support. I love you guys!  :-*   


Scott Banbury, Urban logger since 2002--Custom Woodworker since 1990. Running a Woodmizer LT-30, a flock of Huskies and a herd of Toy 4x4s Midtown Logging and Lumber Company at www.scottbanbury.com

Minnesota_boy

Om Monday my mill decided it didn't want me to saw anymore.  The head wouldn't raise at all.  Got a gearbox and couldn't get stuff apart on the old one to do the swap so I tore the old gearbox open and found a bearing had come apart.  Took a shaft and bearing from the new one and put into the old one and reassembled it.  I'm back sawing. 8)
I eat a high-fiber diet.  Lots of sawdust!

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