Grinding/growling noise in rear drive train

[bwatson]

My cub has a grinding noise in the rear drive train. It sounds like playing cards in the spokes of a bicycle(if you are that old). The faster you go, the faster the noise gets. I assume it is a bad bearing, but no idea which one. Anyone have a troubleshooting technique or a idea of which bearings to start with. I'm pretty sure the noise is behind the transmission, how many bearing are there from the tranny on back??

Thanks for the help, mowing season has hit in Louisiana.

[SundaySailor]

We used to use when working on automobiles in the garage was to take a section of heater hose and put one end in your ear (hoping your hearing is good) and look for the sound with the other end. This will get tricky real quick with a tractor moving!!! See if you can get someone to drive the tractor slowly while you follow behind them with the hose and locate the sound. We've been able to zero in on ticking valves and hissing vacuum hoses by using this method. It is amazing how much surrounding sounds can fool your hearing by normal methods. But then again, who's normal around here?


Rick

[Bigdog]

I'd pull the rear plate (pto) and the tranny top and have a look inside. With that much noise, something should be visible.

[bwatson]

Last year I pulled the rear pto cover and tranny cover, jacked the tractor up and spun the tires. Nothing was visible and the noise was loud and bouncing around inside the rear-end case so that I could not determine where it was coming from. I will try the heater hose trick, I think my grandfather used a broom handle for the same function. Thanks for the help.

[Jim Hudson]

If you want something that's very cheap and works very good go to your parts store and look for one of these.
http://www.thetoolwarehouse.net/shop/LIS-52500.html

[artc]

It sounds like playing cards in the spokes of a bicycle(if you are that old).

yup, and they had names on them like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. worth more today than my cubs probably.....

AND... when i was a wee lad i had a pedal tractor....RED.... farmall M...my Dad put a bracket on the side with 4 spark plugs in it, left it behind at home......house was sold....ain't seen it since....