Final Drive Motor Leaks

If your final drive leak has sprung a leak you will need to get this fixed immediately! Leaks in a final drive when left unattended and ignored will most definitely lead to expensive and costly repairs sooner rather than later. If you can get around to fixing your final drive in a timely manner, you will be saving yourself from a huge and lingering stress down the road.

Let’s look into a few more details regarding Final drive leaks, and what you should be prepared to do when they spring up, below.

Why Has My Final Drive Sprung a Leak?

The most common reason why most Final Drives spring a leak is due to faulty seals.

The primary function of your seals is to maintain a barrier of what’s inside your final drive, in this case, hydraulic fluid, from leaving its functional post. Another functional precaution of the seal is to keep your gear oil inside. The gear oil is there to provide lubricant to the gear system and prevent other outside debris from infiltrating this system. Debris like rocks, sand, and dirt etc.

What Happens When Your Seals are Failing

Well, to begin, a leak from the Hydraulic seal would mean you undoubtedly have Hydraulic fluid spilling out of your component. While this seal would need to have significant damage to pose any threat to functionality, this damage can and will get more severe over time rendering the integrity and overall lifetime of the final drive very limited.

When outside particles have made contact with your hydraulic fluid eventually the particles will have infiltrated your hydraulic hub coming into dangerous contact with systems and components like the rotator group inside the axial piston hydraulic motor, and the cam in the radial piston motor. Once inside, the damage caused by these particles to these systems is irreversible and will only escalate over time. 

Obviously, when the particles inevitably make their way into your gears, they highly scar and bludgeon moving parts, deforming, and jamming them as a result. At this point, if it hasn’t already completed and full functionality of your final drive will be rendered non-existent and will need a full replacement. 

If you believe you have a leak anywhere in your final drive motor before you take action into either fixing or replacing the motor itself we will need to identify the location of the leak.

How To Identify a Final Drive Motor Leak

Easily Enough if you can observe a coarse liquid falling to the on or behind your sprocket, well you won’t have to do much else. This leak is undoubtedly coming from your gear hub, and the fluid itself is gear oil. You can determine what seal has suffered damage when you notice a leak near or on the sprocket mount. This means that you will need to pay attention to the duo-cone seal, sometimes referred to as the mechanical face seal. 

On the same token look at your Final drive  motor and if you can observe another fluid that isn’t gear oil then you have undoubtedly sprung a leak from the Hydraulics system in your component. Contact Precision Final Drives and we can get these issues solved for you.

Seals can be replaced however if your Motor has suffered substantial damage finding a replacement Final Drive motor is imperative. 

Final Words (Conclusion)

Nobody wants to be in the shoes of someone who has a leak in their final drive, however there are quick and easy solutions to these problems most choose to ignore and neglect.

 Saving the seals of, or fully replacing your final drive Motor can and will save you many lingering headaches down the road as these aren’t problems that fix themselves.

 Taking an approach to solve mechanical issues as they arise and investing in fixes could ultimately save you financially and ultimately your equipment and business. If you are looking for fixes to your Final Drive motors and seals contact Precision Final Drives and these solutions will be provided to you painlessly.