Bad day
 

I was enjoying some cub seat time moving snow around the yard when all of a sudden :bigeyes: :bash2: (look at pics) After closer examination I found that it was cracked perfectly all the way around about 3/4 the way through right by the weld.It fell pretty fast and hard ,there was #400 in the weight box at the time.Had to fire up the 72 to get the 125 back to the shop. Talk about a bad day.

OUCH!!! That must stink,but thats one more reason to have more than one Cub Cadet!

wowsa!!! Thank God you're OK.... That sucks bigtime Jeff!

WOW that sucks!!

I am glad you didn't get hurt. Seems like stuff like that happens when you least expect it. Well, to be honest, I would have never expected that to happen. WOW :bigeyes:

Sorry to see that, Jeff. At least, you weren't hurt.

That's why I run loaded tires with wheel weights on my tractors. Take the load off the axle and rear end housing.

how did that happen and what are you going to have to do to repair it? i wouldnt expect that to happen to these tractors, they are overbuilt and have heavy duty rear axles. maybe that 400 lbs was just too much?

Broken axle
 

I would say Sam Mac has the right idea. A little too much weight a little too long and something gave up, in this case it was the axle shaft.

I like the idea of Windshield washer fluid in the tires and wheel weights. I have seen wheels poured full of cement on full size tractors when I was a kid. They devised a way to keep it from sticking to the wheel with maybe canvas and poured it full. They put something in the place of the bolt to keep a hole opening and made their own weights.

Dave in SW Missouri

This is why most of the weight on my loader tractor is on the wheels. I suspect that counterweight contributed to the failure. There is a pretty massive stress concentration where the flange attaches to the axle, and having weight on the frame/rearend increases the stress on the axle flange.

The rear will have to be drained and the axle pulled and replaced. I would replace both axle bearings and seals while you're in there if I were you. You should also get some wheel weights or load the tires, and reduce the side of that counterweight, or you may have this happen again.