I was talking with my friend Tim about work he was doing to his combine. He mentioned that he’d had to do repairs on a gearbox, and that it all started when he noticed that the dipstick tube for that gearbox was broken off. He fixed that, then later he had trouble with the drive belt from that gearbox shredding because the pulley was out of line. Most recently he had to replace a drive hub on that gearbox. He hoped that fixing the drive hub should fix all the problems that started with the broken dipstick tube.
We discussed the timeline of his repairs, and eventually concluded that the dipstick tube wasn’t the “problem.” It was a “symptom” of deeper problems with the gearcase.
The dipstick tube broke because of vibration from the worn hub. The pulley went out of line and shredded the belt because the hub was wearing and moving on its shaft.
The trick is to never assume the first, obvious thing you see is the sole problem. A shredded belt might simply be a shredded belt. But it could be a symptom of a frozen bearing or deeper problem.
I always hope for the easiest and cheapest solution to a mechanical problem, but am always suspicious there may be bigger, less obvious causes. Kind of like a chihuahua that yaps at you and distracts you while a pit bull sneaks up and bites you in the butt.
