It was a nice sunny day to work on the tractor. We were able to get rid
of some problems / potential problems, but it did not fix the PTO operation.
After speaking with the nice folks at Bell Rental and
Sales about our PTO problem we decided to drain the transmission and
replace the filter on the hydraulic pump. If it was clogged it
could cause the symptoms that we were having. The oil on the
dipstick looked slightly dirty, but it was difficult to tell.
We used the tarp to lay on while working on the
tractor. It made the job much nicer.
It took a few moments to clean the build up of crud from
around the drain plugs and break them free. We made sure that we
could get both of them loose as well as the fill plug before draining.
We started draining the front one first.
What came out was pure crud! The new oil is almost clear!
The rear was just over 5 gallons. We filled the
first pail 2/3 full and slid the second one under. We lost just a
few drops.
The clutch free play adjustment was way off so we adjusted
it closer to the specs while we were draining the oil.
After draining the oil and replacing the drain plugs we
removed the access cover for the filter. It had been sealed with a
gasket cement and was difficult to remove.
The filter was totally plugged with the same crud as in the oil and
had quite a few metal particles covering it. (Here
is what the old one looked like) The replacement went on without any
problem. We removed the sealer from the transmission and cover and
cleaned out any metal particles and crud we could reach from the access
cover and then reinstalled the cover using the cork gasket that we had
purchased.
After filling the transmission with 11 gallons of Permatrans III
through the fill hole pictured we hooked up the rotary cutter and gave
it a try. It did not work any better, but the brake squeal went away.
This tractor has wet disk brakes that run in the transmission fluid. The
breaking action seemed to be smoother and more positive after running
the tractor for a few minutes.