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ZF Transmission Problems

NDRancher

Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
10
Location
North Dakota
I have a Samsung SL150 With a ZF Transmission. Forward doesn't always work, but seems to engage in to reverse always. I haven't had the loader very long but I did alot of forward and reverse unloading bales and loading the belly dump this last fall and it worked great! Now all of a sudden no forward all the time. I know this isn't the most common loader as for as name brand, but the transmission is. So if anybody can help it would be greatly appreciated. When I do have forward it shifts good and has good power and works great. It just won't engage all the time and seems to be getting worse, I don't know much about it. I looks to me as though it might have had problems before, there looks to be a new wiring harness coming out of the shuttle shift lever. It runs down to the floor board and makes a connection, that I have checked and seems to be fine. From there I don't really know where to start. I live in Western ND and its not the warmest this time of year, but I sure would like to have my loader up and running in time for the next Blizzard! I'm new here any help would be great!!
 

John C.

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Jun 11, 2007
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12,865
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Northwest
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Machinery & Equipment Appraiser
Don't know much about your unit but it sounds like it has the electronic shifter that is in most unit with a ZF slush box. The Terex trucks I worked on years ago used them and to trouble shoot them took a breakout box. I used to unhook the harness connectors and blow them out with ether or brake clean before I did anything else.

Basically the harness to the shift consul was taken loose and plugged into the box. The output side of the box then plugged into the shift consul. There were pin holes in the box where you could test each circuit. That part was pretty straight forward until you were in autoshift mode. You had to watch on each shift for the pin hole you were stuck in.

You should hear from someone here but if not you might try to find a dealer somewhere who might be able to give you some more ideas of where you can look next.

Good Luck!
 

NDRancher

Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
10
Location
North Dakota
Thanks for the reply. Yes it is electronic, and the harness goes to a box that is about the size of a car stereo that is mounted under the dash board. The wire harness that goes into this box is fairly large (about an inch or so in diameter with the plastic conduit) Not sure yet how many wires go into it. Would this be the slush box you tell me about? The unit does not have Auto-shift see hopefully that might simplify things alittle bit. It has 4-forward and 3 reverse on a twist shift right on the shuttle shift lever. Also when I can get forward out of the machine it "never slips out of gear", and everything operates normally. Thanks
 

John C.

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Your comment that the transmission works in forward when it does go into gear indicates to me that the problem is in the electronic side. Do you notice any difference with the shifter. Maybe wiggle it around some to get it to go into gear. Does outside temperature seems to make a difference? I am assuming the shifter is on the steering column. Is it a tilt steering column? Could there be wiring issues in the column? I had a Cat one time that the harness had a hole rubbed through and wire shorted at times. It pretty much drove me crazy till I found it.
 

willie59

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Dec 21, 2008
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13,363
Location
Knoxville TN
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Service Manager
I kinda agree with John C. If you don't have the proper test devices, I'd be looking real hard at the shift controller and harness. If it's the type of controller I think it is, they eventually have problems from being cycled so much fwd and rev, which is what a loader does. I've even take them apart and found them full of water on open cab machines. If it's a fairly simple controller and has problem working in one direction only, I have located my fwd and rev wires coming from cotroller and switched them, now you pull back to engage fwd and lever fwd to engage rev. Now if you have problems getting rev to engage, chances are you've got a bad controller.
 

NDRancher

Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
10
Location
North Dakota
Thanks for all the good info,makes sense. Yes, I have noticed that the cold weather seems to have an effect on it not wanting to shift. At least I think, it did work fine until it got cold. The loader sits inside, but not in a heated shop. So other than the Engine Block heater it has no help. I thought about maybe putting another heat patch or magnetic heater on to warm the transmission up, but didn't really know where to put it? Maybe by the tranny dipstick I guess? Yes, the shifter is on the steering column, no tilt wheel though. Funny thing is that the wiring harness that comes out of the shift column is new, but the shift lever looks to be well used. I guess thats probably my best starting point maybe they didnt get something tight if they did change out the harness, or they changed out the harness and it was in the controller! I can relate to kind of drives ya crazy! Funny how it always works in front of the shop, but than I find myself backing up to get back to the shop again! HA HA Well the weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse tommorrow, but as soon as I can brave working on it that's where I'll start. When it don't shift I don't really notice a difference in the shift lever, but I can tell it didn't engage. Thanks for all the great advice, I really appreciate it alot!! I'm new to this site, but I'm really enjoying all the good posts. Thanks again
 

NDRancher

Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
10
Location
North Dakota
Well, I'm thinking the cold weather is affecting my shift lever. I pulled the shift lever out the other day and brought it into the house to warm up a bit. Out in the cold before I warmed the control I noticed that when I would engaged the shift lever to forward, without the machine running. I would push it forward and than hear a click a couple seconds later. After bringing it in and warming it up, the shifter feels and seems to engage alot nicer. Maybe hard to explain, but it feels awhole lot different warmed up. I felt the need to open the control up and look inside and found a small circuit board that looked like new, no moisture or dirt inside. I was surprised how nice and clean everything looked. Given the fact that everything worked before it got cold I thought that I would take it out when I need the machine next and try it after I had it in the house warming up. Simple to take in and out, 2 allen screws and an electrical plug. I'm gonna be surprised if it don't work, but it won't be the first time I guess! No measurable amount of snow that needs to be moved right now, but its been way to cold! Wish me luck and if it don't work I'm sure I'll have some more questions. Thanks again!!
 

NDRancher

Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
10
Location
North Dakota
So whats the deal with this 621b. No movement in forward or reverse? It might help to read the post on here about the 621 that was having the shifting problems. I don't know much about these trannys, but with alittle more details about what is going on maybe we can both learn more about them! What have you done or tried so far?
 

Diesel Doctor

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Dec 26, 2009
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Virginia
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On the upper side of the trany there should be a cover with a snap over wire strap that holds it down. Under this cover there is a set of coils. about six I think. Check this for resistance check all against each other. I am not sure the reading now but if you check them against the rest you will find the bad coil. They work in sequence so one bad one will couse it not to shift. I had a world of trouble with a case 821. I may even have a coil....not sure about that.
 

Skytraker

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Joined
Jan 5, 2011
Messages
8
Location
Michigan
621

can someone help me please,,i am working on a case 621b and the transmission will not do anything?

We just finished a real problem 621 with no shift. Have you checked the wires for the fnr shifter on the bucket controller? We found a broken wire for the 24v feed to this toggle and consequently we had no neutral input from the fnr on the joystick to the trans controller. Short story is the controller needs neutral inputs from both shifters before it will let either work.
 

John C.

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Skytraker

Now isn't that something, the manufacturer added more crap to make life easier for the wussy operator and all it really did was add cost and trouble to the machine.

Maybe it's getting time to go back to real operators that started out in the bottom of the ditch and know what real work feels like. I think I'm getting a little fed up with the video gamers that can only crank on a joy stick.

Maybe others here could comment on another thread.
 

Skytraker

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Jan 5, 2011
Messages
8
Location
Michigan
John C

Skytraker

Now isn't that something, the manufacturer added more crap to make life easier for the wussy operator and all it really did was add cost and trouble to the machine.

Maybe it's getting time to go back to real operators that started out in the bottom of the ditch and know what real work feels like. I think I'm getting a little fed up with the video gamers that can only crank on a joy stick.

Maybe others here could comment on another thread.

I can't argue with that, but it is what it is and we now need to fix the junk that's out there. We deal with a lot of ZF and I find it to be very cheaply built, but it does the job for a time. Nothing like the old stuff but 10000 to 12000 hours is common.
 

TD24

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Jan 3, 2011
Messages
295
Location
MS
Occupation
RETIRED (Mostly)
Well, I'm thinking the cold weather is affecting my shift lever. I pulled the shift lever out the other day and brought it into the house to warm up a bit. Out in the cold before I warmed the control I noticed that when I would engaged the shift lever to forward, without the machine running. I would push it forward and than hear a click a couple seconds later. After bringing it in and warming it up, the shifter feels and seems to engage alot nicer. Maybe hard to explain, but it feels awhole lot different warmed up. I felt the need to open the control up and look inside and found a small circuit board that looked like new, no moisture or dirt inside. I was surprised how nice and clean everything looked. Given the fact that everything worked before it got cold I thought that I would take it out when I need the machine next and try it after I had it in the house warming up. Simple to take in and out, 2 allen screws and an electrical plug. I'm gonna be surprised if it don't work, but it won't be the first time I guess! No measurable amount of snow that needs to be moved right now, but its been way to cold! Wish me luck and if it don't work I'm sure I'll have some more questions. Thanks again!!

A suggestion...
If you can reach the "box" or the "circuit board" with the blast from a heat gun; while installed, you might try it cold, no go...
Run some heat on it, try, still no go. Run a second heat. If it goes, you have a "cold" solder joint on board or in the plug in ends.
I am not a dirt man, but many, many years on forklift trucks (2000 to 30,000 cap) so there are a lot of similarities.
I used to have a desktop computer in the shop. Winter, cut the heat down in shop area to just above freezing. Office got real cold.
Computer would not work at opening time, come right on about 9:30 - 10:00. Started leaving an Arvin foot heater of the secretaries on
and problem solved. LOL LOL... The radio in my ISUZU Hombre PU will not work in summer. Now that its winter, works fine. Cold joint
and will have to pull or hit a rougher RR track. Some times a bounce will bring it on. Possible cold/loose ground. Most of the weird
problems that drive us crazy are usually simplicity itself when the find the solution. LUCK
 

quackattak

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Joined
Jan 30, 2010
Messages
188
Location
Oregon
On the 621b problem, there is a computer box behind the plastic panel on the left side of the cab. If you have decent hearing you can hear the computer click 2 times when you turn the key on. If a third click is heard that is the computer shutting off because it sense's a short somewhere, for us it has always been one of the coils under the housing on the trans valve body. Have never dealt with a samsung but I'm sure there are very similar parts.
 

oldseabee

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Jan 23, 2010
Messages
529
Location
Milner, Ga.
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Retired
What model is the transmission, I have some manuals on ZF but need to know the model. Bell Equip used ZF in trucks and some loaders.
 

Timmy S

New Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1
Location
malone ny
I have a 1992 case 621 loader with the zf transmission. Was moving snow the other day with it for about 2 hours got out for a minute and when i got back in i didnt have 1 or 2 gear just 3 and 4. went back a couple hours later everything worked perfect. Ran it the next day for 5 hours ran perfect. A couple days later ran it for 2 hours got out for a minute got back in no 1 or 2 just 3 and 4 gears and been like that every since. Would appreciate if any one had any ideas.
 

tctractors

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Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
2,383
Location
Worc U.K.
on the Samsung g/box I would check the wire conections to the coils under the tin lid,most often on shovels there is 5 coils (3 speed F-R ) I usualy remove the coil harness and plug from the selector valve block and check things out in good light, give all the push on (to coil) connectors a bit of a tighten with pliers then re fit it if it all looks good, if the gear controller (Brain) gets an incomplete signal it will not select, it goes into default, this means you cannot test for power at plug points,the best way to test for power feed is at the coils, or from the hand gea select lever to the controller (brain) as any interuption from the controller unit will make it go into default (non select).

tctractors
 

tctractors

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Oct 9, 2007
Messages
2,383
Location
Worc U.K.
Samsung G/Box is ZF WG200, with slightly differing spec's these are fitted into a stack of earth moving kit from dumptrucks to loading shovels, Timmy S I would check the coil conections (wiring) at the side of the G/Box inside the tin lid.

tctractors
 

mymachine

Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2010
Messages
22
Location
india
i have got a wheel loader liugong CLG856 it has come with ZF 4wg200 transmission,if any one has service or parts manual of it please upload it or can send it to nawaz77s@gmail.com, would be very usefull coz it has problem. thank you
 
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