B rearend whine

The 41 B I bought a few weeks ago has a pretty severe whine coming from the left axle area. I've mentioned it to a few people and always get the "they all do that, its normal" but none of them have actually heard the tractor. My dads ol MF135 made the same noise, especially in reverse, but much quieter. This one in 4th gear is loud enough it kinda sounds like those old gear driven sirens on ambulances.

It does it in all gears, but gets louder the faster you go. Also can hear it in neutral when pushing the tractor around the shop.

I've gotta tear into the axles next month anyway to replace the seals that are soaking the brakes with oil, so I plan to check the bearings and gears... but just looking for some input from other owners of the a/b tractors. How noisy is too noisy? If the tractor wont be doing any real work, how harmful is it to use it for parades or tractor drives?

Thanks

Every one I have ever owned made a good bit of noise but as to how much is to much that is hard to say on here since we can not hear it. I would jack both sides up and if you can have 2 people there. Tat way one can hold on the each tires and then since them over by hand and also double check with a bar that the bearings on each side fell tight. Also double check for water in the oil and also what looks like metal or rust in the oil

The oil leaking out of the axle seals is a bit milky, so it definitely has some water in there. I'll get some fresh oil in there after I replace the seals, it'd be nice if that quiets it down some.

Yes they do have a whine some more than others due to the straight cut gears. Now when you have it apart replase both seals. The outer seal can be removed by taking the brake drum off so you can remove the diff shaft out thru the hole when you remove the end plate on the final drive. I would replace the gear lube with 150wt gear lube and that mite help quiet down some. You can clean the brake band with solvent or brake cleaner as it is soaked with tranny oil. I would flush the tranny also with diesel drive around some to get a good flush then replace with the same 150wt. Ive done a bunch of them with good results as i do have a fleet of them.

Can't tell you if it's "normal" all I can say is my super A is the same way. It's so loud it makes you think there HAS to be something wrong.

But others I know say it's ok.

As for oil leaking - I had a really bad leak on my super a and was getting ready to replace seals. I drained the transmission and no less than 5 gallons of oil came out. (this is a new to me tractor)

On a whim, I replaced with fresh gear oil, using the proper amount (more like 1 gallon), and sure enough, no more leak. The oil level just doesnt go high enough to leak the way it had been.

I mean it will seep out a little here and there, but nothing like what it was doing.

In fact, it's so much less that I decided I can live with it for now, and replace the seals later, probably when I disassemble things for painting.

So you may want to check that before you go ripping it apart.

Ok I drained the tranny tonight and started taking the pans off the final drives to clean them and change the oil...

Got the left side pan off and noticed right away that the bull gear will move side to side maybe 1/4" or a bit more. Is that normal or is something worn out?

I tried the prybar trick on the wheel to see if it was the bearings, but nothing there moved. Also pulled the cap off the inside of the axle and that bearing looks good from the outside, no wobble their either, just the bull gear moves.


We also jacked up each side and spun the wheels to listen for where the noise was coming from... I thought originally it was the left axle housing, but it makes the same noise by spinning both wheels, and I'm pretty sure the whine is coming from the trans/diff area. I flushed those out with kerosene and gonna pop the trans cover off tomorrow to see what I can see inside.

JRSutton, you're right that the previous owner had WAY overfilled the trans, and the final drives... but even if that solved the leaks, the tractor has no brake at all on the right side (somethings broke loose inside I think) and the left is so oil soaked it's not doing much... so at the very least we need to pull it apart to clean and fix those things, I figured I might as well replace all 4 seals at the same time to protect the new brakes.