John Deere 2350 breaking front spindles

[johndeere123]

I have a 2350 tractor 2WD with a loader, the tractor was poorly spec'd for what it was bought for, new front spindles are a common thing for the tractor because the front end is not heavy enough for a loader. Recently i put new wheel bearings in the front, and the dealer told me to just torque them to 35ft/lbs and put the cotter key in. Within an hour of doing this another front spindle broke, and the loader was not even being used. I am wondering if the dealer just made up a number for torque, because first he said not to torque them at all. Could over tightening the bearings be while my front spindle broke???

 

[Delmer]

Maybe?? but the procedure I've always heard for wheel bearings is to torque them down while spinning the wheel to seat everything, then BACK the nut off some amount and lock the nut as loose as you can get it with no play. definitely NOT that much torque.

Bearings last the longest with a very slight preload, but they fail much faster with a little too much preload than a little too loose. no idea what that does to spindles?

 

[Jbullfrog]

There isn't a torque spec for tapered roller bearings. As Delmer said, tighten them until the wheel stops and then back it off until you can get the hole and castle nut aligned. Obviously the dealer has a moron running around.

 

[icestationzebra]

Where is it breaking? ISZ

 

[johndeere123]

It usually breaks just behind the inner wheel bearing

 

[icestationzebra]

I agree with those above about the torque level. If you overtorque the bearings you will brinel them and they will fail fast. But putting too little preload is just as bad. The bearing preload also helps to take some of the bending load off of the spindle. The old stand-by of spinning the wheel is usually good advice.

As for the spindle breakage I can think of a couple things.
- The blend radius just behind the inner race might be too small or they might have accidentally undercut it. This area should have smooth transitions.
- Bad material or heat treat
- Make sure that the inner race is fully seated. Maybe the champher on the inner bearing race is insufficient due to a different vendor?
- Are you running ribbed tires? Turning the wheels while not moving? Both of these put more stress on the axle. Years ago we had a JD 2020 and put truck tires on the front to make loader work easier.
- Any counterweight on the back will encourage you to overload the bucket.

ISZ

 

[td25c]

Have the same story with our 4000 ford loader tractor johndeere123. Front axil is built a little light for a loader, but it's worked for 40 years now so I cant complain to much about it.I have welded the spidles in the past and they hold for some time,also have welded the axil beam near the center pin.I also agree with the other members about the bearing torque .I generally have a bushhogg on the 3 point for counterweight ,my thoughts are the bushhogg is offsetting the load on the front axil. www.heavyequipmentforums.com/showthread.php?11882-Ford-spindle-broke

 

[Michaeljp86]

Tapered roller bearings definitely don't like lots of torque. They need to be tight enough to where there is no slop, that's normally not much more then hand tight.

 

[johndeere123]

The tractor usually has no loader from June till October, and then for the winter only has a winch on the back. most of the snow removal I do is with my backhoe or another tractor with a blower. We used to make silage bales which were way to heavy for the loader which is why it used to break spindles. We haven't made round bales in 5 years now. The tractor does have four rib tires on the front, but they are almost smooth now so I don't think that is the problem. The tractor has approx 10 000 hours on it now, and probably broke 15 spindles since new.

 

[Michaeljp86]

Where are the spindles from?

 

[johndeere123]

They have all come from the dealer

 

[Michaeljp86]

They have all come from the dealer

Maybe try someone else, my dad ordered a replacement seat cushion from the JD dealer 2 months ago for $100. Turned out to be a chinese piece of crap that wasn't anything like the original. Then they charged a $20 restocking fee.

 

[bar tl]

was there any rust in the break? posibly you just got a bad part. tapered bearings usually call for 6 to 10 pounds rolling pressure. aka pack bearing, snug til set, back off and put in cotter pin. 35 ft lbs? i dont think so.

 

[Tinkerer]

Which 2350 do you have? The full size row crop or the much smaller utility tractor.

 

[johndeere123]

I'm not entirely sure whether its full size or not. I would guess that it is a full size, its not a small tractor. It has 16.9 x 30 rear tires and a fairly long hood.

 

[Michaeljp86]

I'm not entirely sure whether its full size or not. I would guess that it is a full size, its not a small tractor. It has 16.9 x 30 rear tires and a fairly long hood.

I worked for a guy who had a JD 2355 with a loader. He bought it from his brother who has a mega farm. It didnt live a easy life and as far as I know it never broke a spindle.

 

[Tinkerer]

I'm not entirely sure whether its full size or not. I would guess that it is a full size, its not a small tractor. It has 16.9 x 30 rear tires and a fairly long hood.

Then it is this one. It is commonly referred to as a row crop tractor here in the midwest USA.
It is a completely different machine than the utility model. Your tractor has some pretty strong spindles on that front axle. Unless as has already been posted that possibly the wheel bearings are tooo tight. You should be getting hundreds of hours on those spindles even with the loader on it. Do you by any chance use the loader to move rock ? The only reason I ask that is because shock loads from the wheels hitting rocks would be awful hard on the spindles.

 

[johndeere123]

We used to use the loader for everything we did, but now we have a 4WD backhoe that does all the heavy lifting, and the 2350 just does the small stuff. The tractor in the picture is the same as mine except for a canopy and I have 4 rib tires on the front.

 

[Michaeljp86]

Thats just about the same tractor as the 2355 I used to run. It had like 5000 hours on it all doing loader work. I really dont think the problem is the spindles. It must be the bearings being to tight.

 

[SE-Ia Cowman]

A and I is owned by deere and they have heavy duty spindels and hubs avalible for most john deere row crop tractors. I recently put in a set of heavy duty spindels on a 4020 they use a spindle out of a 4430 and a thiner bushing in the knee to accomidate the larger diameter 1.5'' vs the hd set 1.75''. If you ask your dealer they should be able to get the parts for you also they have regular spindels for about 60% of deere. There part numbers are the same as deere they just put the letter A in front of the #.