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It will be in my driveway for another week or two before Eric can come get it. I'm the kind of guy that just can't let a problem lay. I'm sure I'll go out there and tinker as ideas come up. I did some drawings last night of an improved mechanism. IMHO I think there needs to be a separate adjustment for the ratio of clutch movement to brake movement. Right now it's given by geometry. I'm probably just making things complicated.
Your comment about it being '60s technology is actually a good thing. Have you tried working on your 21st century vehicle lately?
Thanks for the words of encouragement. I've purposefully avoided bringing up Eric and Keno Tractors. I don't think it's fair to malign someone without them having first crack at fixing the issue. To his credit he has been very prompt at putting me in touch with the mechanic that worked on this tractor. And that mechanic has been good at talking with me on the phone.
It made most sense for me to try and fix things first. After all, down the road it's going to be me alone that is going to have to keep this thing working. The difficulty for me personally is this is my first tractor of any kind and for sure the first one of these dozers I've ever even seen in person! So I have no road map to go by. I don't know what “working” feels like and sounds like. For me to fix something that I've never seen work in the first place is quite difficult.
It's still quite possible that even after they get it working, the performance will not be what I expected. I'm getting the sinking feeling these brakes simply don't work the way I expect.
Let's let Eric have the last word. The tractor is going back to him whenever we can arrange for it to be picked up. I learned a lot and now I know better what to expect.
I'm working along the same lines. I believe what is needed is more throw on the brake linkage vs the clutch linkage. My thought is to fab a new clevis that puts the brake rod on a greater diameter than the clutch rod. Before the dozer goes back I'm going to take a measurement that is needed: the distance the brake control arm needs to travel vs the clutch control arm.
Needs to be shorter. If I had a set of metric dies I might give it a go but getting that rod out of the tower looks….interesting. Thanks for the suggestion but I'm all out of ideas. To be honest I can't really visualize how this is supposed to work in the end. I don't believe that pin is any more than maybe a quarter of an inch from the back of the slot when the pedal is at rest. The only way I could see anything else is if there was a way to pre-tension the brake band. No…this has to go to someone that has more time and experience than I.
One bit of good news… as soon as I edit it together I've got THE clutch adjustment technique. A few clamps, a ruler, tracks in the air, done deal.
Well…. It pains me to say it but I'm throwing in the towel. It's got me beat. The other adjustment is important as I thought however it's at the end of it's travel in the direction I need. So I'm done. Thanks for the help everyone. Bob really you put in some serious altruistic help there. I wish I could report better news.
Now, the difference for pendulum pedal owners… There is another adjustment point and in my case I think this one is key.
This adjustment I believe will change the ratio of movement between clutch and brake. I'm working on a drawing to show why and how. I've found that in my case, even though I rotated the brake control arm to move it forward in the slot, I'm still finding there is not enough throw in the movement to apply brakes fully. I'm going to work out the geometry but I think the above adjustment will fix that.
Member…not even Lifetime Member. Wow Bob, who's coffee did you pi&$ in?
To answer the question first, I'd like to see a nice clean procedure manual pieced together as all of us go through these things. I thought there was or used to be a “manuals” section on this site or the old one.
I just discovered a deviation that the owners of dozers with pendulum pedals have to contend with. So back to our main event…
Next discovery was the brake control arms are not symmetrical left to right. In my case I believe (and this is pure inexperienced opinion) the control arms were swapped. The picture below tells the story. On the top portion you see there is little to no clearance between the cotter key / pin and the casing. In the bottom pic is after I swapped the left control arm for the right. A lot more clearance. The problem was the pin wouldn't slide in the slot because the cotter key would catch on the casing. Now things move well. But that isn't the end of the story….
Ok, got the brake control arm off. Not too bad. The brake band jumped open when I got it off. It was under a lot of tension. So here is a video of the “as is” clutch setting. Looks to me like it could be tightened up a tiny bit but the puzzle to me is I was expecting to see it stay engaged a LOT longer. Oh well. press on. Tomorrow I'll have this clutch perfect and then see if I can get the brake arm back on.
Perfect and I think that is exactly the problem. This picture shows the sequence link adjuster at the end of the threaded rod. No more adjustment to be had. The pin is STILL at the aft end of the slot. Sooooo that must mean the brake control arm is one or two splines off. Is it possible to remove and rotate the control arm without total dis-assembly?
