544G deere loader problem

[dayexco]

we were plowing snow the other nite, our deere 544g all at once lost steering and hydraulics. we were going through op manual trying to figure out what might be wrong, ten mins. or so have passed, all the sudden, engine shuts off, and acts like it's locked up. the mechanic coming up this week says it's one of two things...what sounds more plausible to you? bearing on input shaft to torque converter seized, or.....hydraulic pump failed and seized up? personally, i think it's hydraulic pump. ideas?

[Steve Frazier]

No noises when this was going on? I would think a failure of either of those would make a racket, and you would be able to determine the location of the noise to diagnose the problem.

[Wulf]

dayexco... This is pure speculation 'cause I don't really know the 544G but it sounds to me like an internal failure within the converter (hence the PTO wasn't driving the pumps) I would be praying that it hasn't put excessive pre-load or thrust on the crankshaft thrust washers and seized the engine.

[JDOFMEMI]

Dayexco

I had a deere 544G in 1998 do the same thing you mentioned. It happened at about 3000 hrs or so, and when pulled apart in the shop, it was the torque converter.

Not what I wanted to hear on such a new machine, but it was at least under warranty.

[dayexco]

i lucked out, when the bearing seized on the input shaft, didn't hurt the torque converter. i will have to take torque converter housing, have it built back up, machined back out where the bearing race spun in the housing. it's fix it....or spend 1300.00 for a new one. going to be a lot less problem than i initially thought