John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

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mattga8597
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John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by mattga8597 » Sun Aug 25, 2019 9:42 pm

I recently bought a John Deere 450b. This is my first bulldozer there is 2 3/4 threaded plugs one on the left side and one on the right directly above the rear sprocket what are these for? Also when I adjusted the steering clutches and brake bands the right side was wet and the left side was dry so are these clutches supposed to be wet or dry? What would be the next procedure to fix this?

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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by Rayman1975 » Mon Aug 26, 2019 1:15 am

Wet bad.................oil getting in somehow. Check level on final drive and see if it is fine, if so then oil leaking in from tranny side. If not full oil might be leaking in from final drive side. Drain plugs under steering clutch housing, id remove them.

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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by Lavoy » Mon Aug 26, 2019 9:22 am

Dry clutches. If they are oil soaked, they are ruined. You need to find the source of the oil, and repair it first. Then clean all of the oil residue out of the housing and replace the clutches and brake band.
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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by cordlesscarpenter » Fri Aug 30, 2019 5:27 am

I'm somewhat new to this as well but I would be willing to bet I've spent more time on my 450 in the past few months than many have in years. When I first jumped on here, I didn't even know what I had because the badging had been painted over which led me down the Serial Number path. I was told (on here) that a few of the later 450Bs (right before they came out with the 450C) did also have wet clutches. That being said, I would find your serial number which if you're lucky enough it is still there, the SN placard will be on the kick plate under the seat (think as if you were sitting in the seat and you kicked your right foot backwards, your heel would kick the plate) and find out for sure if your 450B had wet or dry clutches. You might have hit the jackpot with a wet clutch 450B, but it's much more likely that Lavoy (who happens to be the gentleman who runs this here forum) is right and you'll need to find and repair the source of the leak and entry point into the cavity and then pull the clutch, clean out the entire housing and replace (at least the porous clutch and brake parts) and or clean/replace all other parts in there.

Silly question here but you said your right clutch is "wet", are you saying your entire clutch housing is flooded? If so, the first question that comes to mind for me is what what fluid is it in the housing? oil? I would imagine there is a seal between the clutch housing and both the transmission and final drive which means it could be either gear oil from your final drive or transmission oil (unlikely if your housing is full because the levels on those two components are lower than a "flooded clutch compartment"), it could also be fuel if your tank is leaking real bad or simply water if you had a bad seal on your access covers, heck, it could also be hydraulic oil too (which should be the same as your transmission oil). Maybe the PO filled it with something...

Even sillier question... can you steer to the right? If you CAN steer, is it clutch steering or brake steering? In other words, is your clutch disengaging the final drive or is your brake trying to overcome an engaged final drive?

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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by mattga8597 » Fri Aug 30, 2019 5:05 pm

I drained the fluid out of the right side there's a 3/4 plug directly under the clutch housing on each side of the machine... I topped everything off with hydraulic fluid per the manual. Adjusted the clutches per the manual. I now get a lot better response from the clutches turning left and right but the right side that was previously wet turns better then the other side. the plate you were talking about is still intact on this machine and I called the local John Deere dozer shop and they couldn't tell me what year by that number. The best guess they could say was a 79 or 80.If you would like I'll give it to you and if you wouldn't mind see what you can figure out. So after doing everything that I've done to it I used it for 2 hours today and after 2 hours it was like it had intermittent power issues as far as the tracks like when I would put it in gear from forward to reverse sometimes it will respond and pushed her and then sometimes it wouldn't but for the first two hours it run like a champ now when I let it sit there for a couple hours and come back it runs fine again it's like when it heats up something's not working correctly any ideas on this?

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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by mattga8597 » Fri Aug 30, 2019 5:07 pm

Oh as far as the clutch housing being wet on the right side I probably dumped about half a gallon of black I guess hydraulic fluid out of it when I took that plug out

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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by Jim B » Fri Aug 30, 2019 5:46 pm

Please post the all the letters and numbers on your serial number tag. There is a post (third one down) on the FAQ board giving the different 450 series serial numbers for the year built up through the 450G. From the info in that post the B ended in 1976. 79 or 80 should make it a C model. When you say the local John Deere dozer shop, is that a John Deere construction (yellow) equipment dealer shop or an independent shop that works on John Deere dozers? I would hope a dealer shop could ID it by the serial number better than that.

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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by mattga8597 » Sat Aug 31, 2019 8:56 pm

SNT 5F3M 016243T

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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by Jim B » Sun Sep 01, 2019 4:53 am

The following is the breakdown of your serial number using the serial number code information from the Introduction section of the John Deere 450 parts catalog. You posted: SNT 5F3M 016243T



SN = serial number
T = Tractor
5 = JD450
F = Crawler Dozer
3 = Diesel (202 cu.in.)
M = Transmission (Hi-Lo-Reverse)

Serial number: 016243 (This number falls in the 1966 build range using the serial number list on this site’s FAQ board)

T= (Build location) John Deere Dubuque Works

This indicates a 1966 straight 450 crawler dozer with a diesel engine and HLR transmission arrangement, not a 450B. 450B serial numbers are formatted differently from what I found. Perhaps someone will have something different but that is what I found.

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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by cordlesscarpenter » Sun Sep 01, 2019 3:54 pm

sent a PM

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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by Jim B » Fri Sep 13, 2019 2:41 pm

mattga8597,

I sent you a PM, with an answer to the question you PM'd to me, about your serial number.

Jim

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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by Lavoy » Sat Sep 14, 2019 8:34 am

Definitely not a wet clutch crawler, the housing should be dry.
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Re: John Deere 450b any help would greatly be appreciated

Post by 2378 » Thu Oct 31, 2019 2:14 pm

the year to serial number list i have would put it as a 450 straight mfg 1966

Mike
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