Bought a 440ICD as is -- the problems so far

[Ray III]

Also, do NOT (one says this a lot with this style reverser), ever, try and use the main transmission in reverse with the reverser in reverse to attempt to gain an additional forward speed. Guess what happens if you do?

Why is this a problem? Because the reverse clutch isn't as strong as the forward clutch and most of the force happens going forward? Is it okay to do R + R with the gear type reverser?

[Lavoy]

Because forward is straight through, reverser is running through a very small gear set in the gear type, and a small differential in the clutch type. Either of these gears is not meant to take full power under extreme load. As the sign often says "Severe damage may result."
Lavoy

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

With the differential style reverser, the clutch packs, the differential gears, and the entire housing that holds the mess together is running as one really fat shaft when in forward.

In reverse, the clutches change things and the forward half turns forward, then the tiny differential gears come into play (the clutches free them up) and the rear half of the assembly winds up rotating backwards.

Of course, this makes the transmission input shaft go backwards as well, and, then, so does the whole machine.

Note that the entire force of moving the weight of the machine winds up passing thru those little gears. They're big enough to handle that, but not big enough to handle the additional load of pushing or pulling something.

I suppose that the diff gears would be OK if you only moved the machine itself like this, but then why add wear and tear onto them when you don't need to?

The best answer is to stick a bolt into the shifter gate at the reverse position and eliminate any possiblility of this particular issue.

BTW, I say shifer gate as the differential style reverser went only with the 5-speed tranny and they had a domed shifter gate (this being for the 4-speed owners that never saw a 5-speed tranny).

Stan

[thomastractorsvc]

Brad,

What page of the ICD Manual you find that on? The Service Manual I bought from you is for the Gas model spark ignition and only talks about the 6 Volt Positve Ground? If you actually have a Manual for the ICD you only sold me the Owners and Parts can you send the service manual for the ICD?

[BKahler]

Brad,

What page of the ICD Manual you find that on? The Service Manual I bought from you is for the Gas model spark ignition and only talks about the 6 Volt Positve Ground? If you actually have a Manual for the ICD you only sold me the Owners and Parts can you send the service manual for the ICD?

Rob,

All of the CDs that I've sold for the 440 crawlers have 6 files on them. The ICD service, parts and operators manuals and the IC service and parts manuals. The 6th file is a copy of the Detroit Diesel service manual for the 53 series engines. Although a few of the early CDs didn't have the operators manual but I've offered a copy of it to anyone that bought the CD.

Do me a favor and do a "dir" on the CD I sent you and send me a list of the files as shown from the "dir" command.

I'm heading out of town tomorrow afternoon so if you're really missing the files for some reason I won't be able to send them your way until Tuesday.

Brad

[Ray III]

Well I better take it easy going in reverse. I was backdragging to smooth out the ground, had it in 3rd gear backing up a grade and lugging the engine pretty good!

I'll look at putting a bolt in the R position.

[Lavoy]

Ray,
Keep in mind that you were in a higher gear, so you have less total push (pull) available. Reverse and reversed is more like second gear in terms of speed, so it is a lower gear. The assumption is that when in a forward gear, you might be up against a tree or something like that, and if you have good tall grousers, look at the force the engine is applying through the reverser if the tracks can not spin. In a situation where you are pulling something backwards that is really pulling hard and you would be in a lower gear, it is still not bad insurance to use reverser instead of 1st or 2nd and reversed. It may never matter or hurt a thing, but it is some expensive parts if it does.
Lavoy

[Stan Disbrow]

Ray,

So, if you're in 3rd gear and going backwards, then you had to be using the reverser, which is OK. The thing is designed to allow the machine to move itself backwards in any gear - although I don't much like using 5th gear in either direction as it seems way too fast for the tracks to me!

When backdragging, you don't have all that much of a load on the blade, so I'd think if everything is OK in the reverser, then they'll stay that way and you don't have much to worry about.

The problem comes in when someone sticks the tranny in reverse and the reverser in reverse to then go forward. This actually never made much sense to me as the speed in second and reverse is so close as to be the same, so what someone would be trying to do doubling up reverses to go forward escapes me.

Anyway, if one did this and just moved the machine, I don't think it'd hurt anything unless one did this all the time. It's when one hangs a big tree trunk off the drawbar or is trying to dig a hole to China with the reverses doubled up that the poor, little differential gears in the reverser would cry 'uncle' and rapidly give up the proverbial ghost.

My 420c has many hours on it (so many that the hour meter went up in a puff of smoke 30 years ago) and much of them were backdragging using the reverser (diff/clutch style as she's a series 3 420) and the thing still works. It did have the clutch packs changed once about 20 years back, but those last 20 years she's not done a lot of heavy work like she did before then. Anyway, the spyder gears are still working after all this time, so they're not too much of a worry as far as wear goes.

I think the old bolt in the reverse position trick is meant more for novice operators than experienced ones. This means that Dad put the one in his 420 because I was a kid just learning to use the thing at the time and he wanted to avoid some possible unnecessary repairs!

I just never bothered to take it out.

Stan