Transmission torus members failure

[M37keppy]

A few weeks ago we were working a m211 hulling a heavy load and after stopping for a stop sign then going through the intersection, it lost all power to the wheels. So that day turned into a recovery job. Luckily I have a m816 wrecker and it was able to tow it loaded back home very slowly on back country gravel roads. Today I finally got around to pulling the transmission to figure out what happened and found the two torus members destroyed. I’m going to tare the whole thing down and see what else I find. Just posting because it seems like a weird failure.

 

[tommys2patrick]

wow, looks like it would have made a heck of a noise. here's hoping it was just this and not the whole tranny. not seen that before. life can take some strange turns once in a while.

 

[rustystud]

Was the large Torus nut loose ? Looks like something went through the vanes like a crank flywheel bolt or the Torus nut.
Can you verify if the input shaft has the "steel bushing" on it ? I cannot tell from your picture.

 

[M37keppy]

All the bolts are still in the flywheel. The spacer was on the shaft with the nut and lock plate with folded tabs still in place. My only guess is a blade broke and destroyed the rest. The spring is not broken and the collar looks fine. Those parts are on the blue rag in the picture.

 

[rustystud]

Any updates on this failure ?

 

[m1010plowboy]

That transmission looks like it might have been the 'high dramatic' transmission and not the hydro matic. That damage is pretty wild.

Do you have replacement parts?

I poured through all kinds of hydro and hydra dramatic data looking for a similar failure and it's elusive.

We've seen plugged cooling lines on a bunch of take-outs and parts trucks but to get hot and detonate like that would be something special.

Thanks for sharing it and let us know if you need something to get going again.

 

[M37keppy]

I don’t have much to share on it yet but got it mounted to the engine stand to work on. I’ve been busy with farm work since the weather has been decent. I plan to get at it when it’s crappy outside. As far as parts go I have a few other hydramatics that I saved out of junk trucks headed to the scrapyard

 

[M37keppy]

Just finished disassembling the transmission down to the components and everything looks good outside of metal shavings throughout. I did do the air-check tests from the TM, before disassembly and didn’t find anything wrong. Next step will be to open up the clutch packs. Then the long slow task of component disassembly and cleaning. I will update if I find anything interesting.

 

[rustystud]

Hey, since you have your transmission all apart can you check and see if you have the bushing installed in your "midshaft (first output shaft) " . It's the one the input shaft goes into.
Thanks.

 

[M37keppy]

There is no bushing installed and does not appear to ever be one.

 

[rustystud]

There is no bushing installed and does not appear to ever be one.

Thank you for checking. That pretty much confirms my theory about this transmission. Without that bushing installed, the transmission is losing fluid pressure at an extremely fast rate. This is the "smoking gun" I've been looking for to explain the short life of the average 303M transmission.