the elusive ''creak''

[john swenson]

hey friends, started hearing a ''creaking '' sound while riding the max 2. jacked it up and i hear it on the left side. sounds like a creaky board on a wood floor. it's not continuous and only does it rolling the tires forward. bearings are all tight, pumped grease in all the zerts. the bearings seem to revolve at least 2 revolutions before the creak spot comes. borrowed my mechanic neighbors stethescope tool to try and isolate it. can pin it down. as i said, does'nt make the noise rolling tires backwards. any ideas ? thanks mucho. johnboy va.

[Deedeelin1]

B

[thebuggyman1]

Do you have the inner bearings? The older maxII's had hollow axles with a bronze bushing for an inner bearing. I personally love the system...EXCEPT for the lack of a way to grease them.

I had a machine that would squeak and creak when it was time to add some grease....and this was the solution:
Fill the entire axle with grease, it will reach the inner bushing eventually.

[ARGOJIM]

John, check your lug nuts also, a slightly loose wheel will creak. You may also wish to loosen the chains on the jack shafts and check for worn bushings.
Jim is also right on with the bushings, did that same thing to my Max 20 or so years ago and cured it.

[msafi65]

I've had several with bearing cages that would creak of pop on one or more axles. The only cure I've found for them is break the lock collars loose and re set in the opposite direction. Only thing I can attribute the noise to is the axle working in each bearing a bit. Once I found this cure Its worked on all I've tried.

[john swenson]

thanks guy's , great things to check i haven't thought of. it's a 2001 max with inner axle bearings with grease fittings. so the jackshafts use bushings , not bearings? the zerts in the middle of the shaft, so you have to pump enough grease in to reach the end's ? i will check lug nut's and loosen chains to see how that works. and i will check the collars too. will report back. appreciate it much. johnboy va.

[john swenson]

friends, after continuous probing, i finally narrowed it down to the back left axle. when i put my hand on it and turned the wheel, i could feel a slight vibration at the spot i heard the ''creak''. i pulled off the outer axle bearing and sure enough when i turned it, i could feel a spot where it felt like maybe one of the balls was bad inside. put a new bearing on and no more noise. so even though the axle had no play, the bearing was starting to go bad. when your listening for a noise it's hard to pinpoint because everything echoes in the tub. when i thought i had it pinpointed, then it sounded like another spot. anyway, thanks for the ideas. johnboy va.

[flippy]

and those 1 1/4" axle couplers you put on made the job easier I bet.

[john swenson]

flippy, yeah it did. 15 - 20 min changeover.both the left side middle and rear axles are hard to get to the inner bearing lock collars, plus if the sprockets are a little frozen on they can be hard to pull the axle thru. the middle right axles the same way. i sure thought on my first max 2, maybe a 1990 or so had hubs that bolted to axle end, not welded. just pull the hub and same easy procedure. but i may be wrong. johnboy va.

[flippy]

my machine does not have removable hubs and it was an old #40 chain max-however I did upgrade to #50 chain and made all my own #50 sprockets-I plan on doing the axle coupler mod you did if the tracks I plan on building work-Then I will make bearing extensions.My back cant take bending over the machine and removing the sprockets everytime I want to do some mods or maintenance thats actually outside the body tub-plus I think its a huge plus to just add axle length for running bigger tires .