Brake cleanup for the John Deere 40T

[cjet69]

Ever since we bought this tractor it has only had one brake that barely worked. My brother opened them up earlier this week and said the discs looked to be OK. Figured we would pull them apart clean, sandblast, re-assemble them, and see if they work. Got them back on the tractor and gave it a test drive. Both brakes work now and will lock up the rears. Now the parking brakes hold the tractor still when hooking up implements. There is one oil seal that should be replaced, but we need to look up the procedure first.

 

[olcowhand]

What did you use/do to remove the goo from deep within the disc?

 

[cjet69]

What did you use/do to remove the goo from deep within the disc?

I boil the parts in water with TSP (Trisodium phosphate). This does a good job cleaning the grease and oil off of the parts. If the disc are oily, I boil them also. I follow that up with the pressure washer. If the discs still have some oil, I use a propane torch to heat the brake material. You don't want to get them to hot, but this will usually get the oil to wick up and burn away. These discs on the one side just had oil on the surface, so they cleaned up pretty good with just the boil. I did run the propane over them to check. When I remove the castings from the boil the paint is usually mostly gone, so I blast and prime them. I'll get a pick of my boiler setup.

 

[cjet69]

Snapped a pic of my boiler setup. It an old cutoff Keg on a big propane burner.

 

[MNGB]

Brakes look good Chris, and good to hear they will lockup the wheeels it nice to have good working brakes