450 Crawler loader- steering clutches- lack of movement

[ramody44]

I have just purchased what I believe to be a '69 450 crawler loader. Last year I was borrowing it from a friend, and after using it for about 1/2 hour, the crawler began to lose power to the tracks and then it would not move forward or backwards. At the time it had a bad leak on a hydraulic line to the bucket, just over the left track. Former owner brought it to a friend to look over, and after a few weeks, the friend was too tied up with other jobs & never got around to working on it. The crawler was miracuously working when the owner went to pick it up. Replaced the leaking line and all seemed to be well, but did not use it, other than to start it and move around the yard a little, never ran it through its paces, since then. Fast forward to today. I changed the major filters, getting it ready to use. After working it for apprx. 1/2 hour today, the same thing occurred, only I lost power going to the right track. I noticed that in the dirt that I was leaking fluid(no color-hydraulic fluid) on the ground on the right half of the crawler, between the tracks,(didn't get a chance to see from where as it bagan to rain. Is it possible that in both incidences that I got hydraulic fluid on the steering clutches thus no drive to the tracks? Is it possible to spray brake cleaner on the clutches to dry them out? Where do you access them? I'm hoping time will fix this again, unitl I have time to locate the new leak. Thanks in advance.
Rick

[digitup2]

I have found that if I were to find oil impregnated into dry clutch packs I would take the time and replace the oil soaked faces they tend to swell with oil and when they heat up next time they just slip over again when they slip they heat and more oil is swetted out to the surface and the situation just gets worse .When you get too much heat the steel plates worp with heat so straight edge them for flatness when you are in there .I know that there is only a small amount of oil in there but it only takes a very small amount to slip the clutch .Starting new and dry is the best situation and only remady I recomend to you .I have been running these dry clutch Deeres fore 3 1/2 decades and never had luck geting oil out of dry clutches .Digitup.

[ramody44]

Today I was trying to get to the bottom of this scenario, without getting too in depth. I ended up spraying the area where you adjust the steering clutches, towards the steering clutch packs with brake cleaner. I then attempted to drive it and it started to propel itself with the track that was at issue. I then sprayed some more and it got better, till I finally sprayed an entire can of brake cleaner in the area. Well, I don't know why, but it started to work like there was no problem. I then drove it and was putting it through its paces moving some down trees and tree trunks and it never missed a beat. I kept this up for a good 25-30 minutes w/o issue. I don't know if it's fixed for good, but I will keep you posted if it is a short term fix.