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Yes, all our swings (Farmking) have CV joints - so very strange that you would not have one on your Brandt swing too?
I had problems with a FK13x70 in the mid90s. The driveshaft it came with did not like steep inclines and likely suffered from not having enough distance between tractor and auger (speculation) - so did lengthen that out. Part of the CV would fail (ears break off). It was a very large bin for the auger (3307 flat) and the shaft telescoped in (possibly near bottomed out) and maybe when the tube was full, it changed geometry enough to bind - not sure as it only failed twice I believe and always on that same bin.
The solution for us was to buy a PTO shaft from a 13x85 which was a much heavier drive shaft and at that time cost $1200 (late '90s) but it was well worth it and never had an issue again with that auger! We kept the old one as a backup because no one nearby seemed to stock any of the parts needed to repair specialized yokes- crosses yes, the rest no!!!
On our very first 13x70 we had a lot of gearbox problems, bearings failing. We have bought 2 13x85s since, the last one has the 1000 rpm pto drive with the Chinese gearbox on the end. I think I posted before on other threads, but what we did was added a lot more gear oil into those failing gearboxes. We added an extension pipe to the side so we could get the oil in!
In my estimation, the reason for gearbox failure was due to running the box in an upside position and oil not being slung up to the bearing. IMO, there should have been an oil "slinger" on the shaft which would splash the oil around better which I guess could be another viable option if you think that adding too much oil will be hard on seals. We have never had an issue with extra oil in the box and it keeps it from failure. It works! I know gearbox failure has been totally prevented so far and we have been running these augers since the mid-90s.
This year we had issues with the 1000 rpm drive system on the FK1385. We keep all 3 augers as backup because your combines stop when you can't dump the grain! They used a round to square shaft to drive the bottom of the auger flighting. Naturally, it broke off at the interface between the square and round! Major issue with that system was that no one had parts and it had to come out of Winnipeg - happened on a Thursday night - you know where that leads!
We unhitched the auger and tied on the backup 540 auger to replace it and carried on - wait on repairs. Used the other auger for the rest of the season. All this stuff is built too light IMO - especially if you auger lentils. An auger sees lentils, it just about wants to crap the bed! I guess one should invest in a 120 ft conveyor! Augering barley would never cause a problem, even if wet!
As it was taking a long time to get repairs from Winnipeg to our closest dealer in Rosetown (while we are in SW Sask) and was expensive, we took the drive off the auger, removed the broken shaft pieces and took them to our very good local welding shop. There was a reason given that Rosetown didn't want to ship direct from factory to us. The machine shop built 2 of them so we now have a spare and price was cheaper. I believe they made them from keystock and cut an inverted interface between the square and round to help reduce the high stress area (u vs. n).
Of course, it was all fun as the auger shaft twisted off while it was full of lentils and kochia weed seeds. It also wasn't fun to try and get the gearbox off the machine as they use a chain couplings internally to couple power to the swing direct. We found it difficult to get that back on, gearbox is very heavy as well. It was nice to have a picker to put it back together again. Taking it apart was easy, as we basically let it fall to the ground after getting upper drive (internal apart) and taking out bolts around the circumference! (I also enlarged the hole in the end of the auger, so we don't have to slide the gear off the 1000 gearboxshaft next time. This was the 2nd season on this auger so it was new (not rusted in yet) and managed to slide the gearbox off the auger. We got in there with crowbars on either side - no room inside to get gear coupler off as it is inside a cage and no space to work. A bigger hole in end plate will allow us to remove the gearbox and never have to remove that gear!
That is our experience. 1000's common in your area? Parts available if it blows up like it did on us? Do you have a backup plan? Time is money. Some things to consider on your next purchase! Sorry for the long epistle!