LT230 PTO cover preload

With the PTO cover on (silicone seal, not gasket) my intermediate gears are very hard to turn freely by hand with the sump cover off. With the PTO cover off they can be spun relatively easily using the input shaft.

Should the preload on PTO cover be significant enough to affect the intermediate gears this way?

LeftFoot said:

With the PTO cover on (silicone seal, not gasket) my intermediate gears are very hard to turn freely by hand with the sump cover off. With the PTO cover off they can be spun relatively easily using the input shaft.

Should the preload on PTO cover be significant enough to affect the intermediate gears this way?

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excessive input gear preload will effect the overall effort needed but not effect the intermediate gear bar the fact the two are connected, what engine is in the truck if its 300tdi it shouldnt have a gasket but 200 and previous will

jamesmartin said:

excessive input gear preload will effect the overall effort needed but not effect the intermediate gear bar the fact the two are connected, what engine is in the truck if its 300tdi it shouldnt have a gasket but 200 and previous will

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300tdi ROW spec.

LeftFoot said:

300tdi ROW spec.

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it shouldnt have a gasket if std , a gasket is about 12 thou considering preload is 2 thou if you miss it out and it should be there it makes input gear tight, what your loking at with the gears is no free play try a gasket and cjeck with sump off input gear cant be moved forward or back ie free play

As an update.. Removing the input housing cover plate I inserted two of the screws into the housing and tightened them down. It took a bit of effort to turn the input shaft by hand. Once I backed those two screws off a bit the input gear once again became easy to turn. So it appears that the preload on the input shaft is indeed the reason why I experienced the stiffness. The manual states that these screws should be torqued to 25nm. That is barely finger tight in my estimate and I think I now see why. Point to note as well.. even though with the 2 screws tightened there is some stiffness at the input gear, once I managed to get it turned it seems to turn easily. It only appears to require a little extra effort to get it started. Anyway.. the original task was to tighten the nut on the intermediate gear shaft to remove any play and I managed to get that done, so I guess now I will have to test drive to see if all of this effort was worthwhile.