Crack in housing on 440 ICD

[Stormy]

I am very new to crawlers and just purchased a JD 440ICD with loader. Our primary use for it is going to be to clean out a couple of dried up tanks. Everything appears to work on the machine with the exception of a few diesel leaks and no breather hose or generator. But here is my problem, There is a crack in what I believe is the housing for the final drive (I'm not exaclty sure since I don't know much yet). It looks like a large piece broke out and was welded back and now it is cracking in another place down from the weld. My question is will rewelding last for a while again? and what are the consequences if the crack gets worse? Am I better off selling this one as is and looking for another one?





Thanks for your help,
AJ

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[Lavoy]

That is the track clutch housing, it is between the final drive and the transmission. They are cast iron so difficult to weld at best. There is a lot of stress on this piece, especially on a loader. Best way to fix it is to replace the housing.
Lavoy

[Stormy]

Do you know where I could get one or approx what the cost is going to end up being? Also I know everything on these is a lot of work and time, but do you know approx how big of a project this would be to do? There would be 2 -3 of us to work on it and good to average Tractor machenics, not crawler machenics.

Thanks.

[Lavoy]

It is not overwhelmingly difficult, just a royal and complete pain in the ass. With extra guys for help, and the parts on hand, maybe a day. Trouble is I will guarantee that you will find stuff in there that should be fixed while the final drive is off. Doing that and waiting for parts will take the longest time. If you do not have a factory parts and service manual, do not even try it.
I have a housing, but not sure if it is the correct side. At any rate, they are not that hard to come by, maybe a slight delay.
Lavoy

[Stormy]

Thanks for the information. The guy I bought it with (who is a little hard headed) wants to try to weld it again, he has allready talked to the welding shop he uses and they think they can weld anything (they do have a lot of cast iron experience but mainly engine blocks and such). I guess we will let them try once then fix it right if/when it breaks again.

[Lavoy]

Cast must be preheated evenly to weld for the most part, not possible while the housing is on the crawler unless you cook everything inside.
Keep in mind if/when it lets go, you will have a lot more days, and a whole hell of a lot more money in it. Get the guy that wants to weld it to guarantee he will stand the loss when it lets go before you weld it.
Lavoy

[Ray III]

Hard headed welders are particularly fun to deal with. I don't think it's going to turn out well either. I wish you the best of luck with that guy!

[wwattson]

I'm with Lavoy on this one. You're just going to end up with a real mess if you try welding it and it's apparent that the crack extends around the corner up against the transmission case. It's a bit hard to tell in the photo but it looks like it's already displaced a little on either side of the crack indicating that it's probably cracked all the way through to the center hole. Like Lavoy said, it's a pain in the butt but no where near what it's going to be if it fails completely and breaks something not so easy to find or fix like the transmission case or final drive case.

Between Lavoy and some of his sources, you should be able to get the parts and it's really not that bad a job. Just make sure you've got a friend or two lined up, the torch tanks are full, and lots and lots of beer. I recommend New Glarus Stopped Cow for undercarriage work.

[Stormy]

Thanks for all your input I am convinced that is what we should do, but I am not the majority owner and I am haveing a hard time convincing him, but I'm getting closer. Do you know where I should start looking to buy the housing and about how much it should cost? I have looked a little on the internet but haven't had any luck.

[Stormy]

I should have asked this sooner, but is there likely something that caused this to break that needs to be replaced at the same time or just happened to break?

[Lavoy]

Breakage in that area is most likely due to mounting bolts, final drive bolts, and crossbar to final bolts not being kept tight, as well as the extra stress on a loader crawler plus some abuse. I did not notice that the crack extends around the curve, so I will amend my opinion on the repair. There is absolutely NO WAY IN HELL that a weld on that piece, in that position, will EVER work. I don't care if the guy that invented welding does it, if you do not weld to the end of the crack, it will break again. If this majority owner also is the majority bill payer, tell him this. IF, and I say IF you are fortunate, all you will break is the broken clutch housing and some incendentals. IF you are not lucky, you will be buying a tranny case, a final case, and very possibly lots of the internals in and around these two pieces. Now you are looking at a couple thousand dollars just to get started, plus close to one week of hard day long work by experienced guys that have worked on two cylinder crawlers. It takes me at least one full day to rebuild one of these trannys if it is laying on the bench, and I probably have done a few more than the average guy.
As to a clutch housing, I have one on hand, I need to check if it is LH or RH. Either way I can get you one, just take a little more time.
Lavoy

[lizrad999]

To weld the casting it will need to be preheated completely (usually done in a bed of heated sand) then allowed to cool in the same bed od sand. I beleive it also requires the use of nickel (high nickel content) welding rods.
The casting will have to come off to do this.
So, if the casting has to come off if you replace the part or weld the part, then it's simple:
How much to weld it (guessing $200) compared to how much for a replacement (guessing $200). So that is a wash...

Now, how reliable are both options?

Welding will never be as strong as the original casting. (the weld is, but the material isn't) I'd give it a 65%.

A replacement casting is more reliable (I'd say 95%) given you are able to determine why it broke in the first place.

The way I figure it, unless you or 'hard head' are certified welders and can do the work yourselves, it's a no brainer.
If Mr. Impulsive still wants to weld it, tell him that when it fails he has to buy you out of your portion of the crawler.

Just my two cents......

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

If you weld this, it *will* bust again with 100% certainty. I'll tell you when it'll let go, too.

When you're digging a fundation, or swimming pool, or some other reason for making a large hole in the ground, which is a good use for a dozer.

At some point, you'll be pushing a blade full of dirt up the hill you've created. As you hit the point where the original grade is, the front of the tracks will be onto the looser dirt you've already pushed into a hill. The change in density will cause the machine to rotate a bit as the traction conditions change.

This will put most of the weight of the machine on the final drive that's more downhill and still at the point of the original grade. It will also put the weight of the dirt on the blade onto that final as well. Since that track will have more grip than the other, it'll put most of the power onto that sprocket as well.

You have a 50/50 chance of this being the repaired housing.

So now we have all this weight on one housing, plus some side torque from the twisting of the whole machine on the housing, plus the torque of the engine going through that sprocket. Oh, and all this also causes the track chain to bunch up a bit and yank forward on the sprocket as well.

Crack.

Now, the machine will wind up back in the hole, with one track shucked off. Well it will if you have the usual luck as to when dozers break.

I can tell you how the original crack started as well. Someone went too fast over a log (or rock or whatever) in reverse and slammed the back end down hard. That can start the initial crack very easily. They probably had some loose bolts to go along with it, too. Sigh.

Once the tiny crack started, then various torques and loads made it get larger until we have what you see. What I see in the pix is about six attempts at fixing it by welding only to have it get worse each time.

If you intend to fix this and just take it to shows, you *may* get away with welding it. Although, you'd best be careful putting it onto the trailer. They like to slam down on the finals and that's something you need to avoid with a weleded housing like that.

Sometimes I wonder if the welder's head happens to be harder than the material he's trying to weld. I think that's the case here, I'm sorry to say.

Here's an idea for when the weld breaks: Go into the machine shop, grab a large chunk of steel, head to the large mill - and cut away everything that doesn't look like a final drive housing. I know that'll hold up!

Or, buy another old cast housing that ain't cracked......

Later (and best of luck to you),

Stan

[mini kahuna]

they break like that from loose hardware,crossbar bolts loose,missing and being slammed around on hard ground.
a weld there will only prolong what needs to happen..replace the housing.
lavoy's right you'll get the final off and find steering componets that need attention anyway.
that casting takes all the torque and weight and shock loads on that side of the machine.
I have seen a 450 welded up like this and the thing broke again and the operator didn't notice for a while,final drive bull gear ruined,final housing ruined,trans case holes egged out,machine went to the scrape yard for parts,what a mess.

[shinnery]

There is a 420 housing on the bag right now, not sure if it will fit a 440I. The auction no is 270210255242 , they say it is a left side, I THINK looking at the pictures it is a right side. If Lavoy doesn't have one.
Bryce