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Faunsdale, AL | Whoah! From a 5000 series to a 4840!
We've had 4 of these tractors here. Sort of a torture test scraping manure with a rear mounted rubber scrape every day, "4 wheeler" duty getting up cows, occasionally a little hay work etc. First one was a 5410 shuttle shift on a 3 year lease. Ended up putting in a clutch before the lease ran out. Replaced by a 5420 with power reverser which we purchased. It's well over 10.000 hrs now and going good. Main problems have been wheel and axle bearings. I was tired of replacing front wheel bearings, so when we needed another tractor, we got a 5320 MFWD and then later a 5325 MFWD.
For our use, the MFWD was not an advantage. If you had a loader on one, or were actually pulling somthing that was hard to pull, then it probably would be worth it, but the bearings didn't last much longer than the greased bearings of the 2WD tractors and cost a lot more to fix when they go out.
I'm not sure what the deal is with the rear axle bearings.....Probably has something to do with washing the tractor occasionally, but even with regular greasing, we have replaced a bunch of the outer bearings and seals on all 4 of the tractors we still have around. Newest one is a 5055D and it didn't make it a full year before the first one went out and the other side went out within the month. By now, we're concentrating on keeping these things greased, so I really don't understand the reason for the failure so early there. We have modified these axle housings by drilling and tapping a hole for a pipe plug and keep them half full of 85-140 lube until they won't hold it anymore and then use corn head grease until the bearing fails before cleaning out the housing, replacing bearing and seal and starting over with gear lube. The last ones I have done (on the 5055D) I have doubled the seals so there is an extra layer to protect the inner seal from attack by mud/manure etc. I can't say if this has done any miracle, that tractor isn't getting a lot of hours at this time.
The few times we use these for hay or PTO work they have been great. You can run a hydraulic motor and they stay cool a lot better than our older 4020/3020 etc.
The most common nagging problems with our open station tractors has been the fuse panels. It is well worth the time it takes to remove all the fuses and replace or clean the prongs and lube with a dielectric grease before reinserting.
Edited by ccjersey 3/13/2014 09:43
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john deere 5310. good or bad tractor?
