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Another afternoon spent...
May. 17th, 2009 08:23 pm...dealing with an unexpected problem.
Yesterday the transmission on the lawn tractor went out. It's hydrostatic. After consulting the great Google, I decided to try draining and replacing the fluid in it. It does seem to have lost a bit of fluid, and what was in it was BLACK. According to the manual and online sources, it takes 20W50 (light gear lube). I got some at Meijers but it was "motorcycle oil" only available in high grade, name brand stuff, so I paid $5/qt for it (needed 3 qts). It took a bit over an hour to get the tranny out of the tractor, an hour for the fluid to drain into a bucket, about 5 minutes to refill it, and about 45 minutes to put it back together again.
Seems to be working. It was pretty sluggish at first as I had been warned it would be, since it had a lot of air in the system. But it ran for 30 minutes while I mowed the front lawn, and by the end of it it was running as normal. I should probably top it off before using it again.
So, an afternoon shot, but the cheapest alternative would be to take it to a shop; I've been told that shops do not try to fix these, they just install a new tranny, and just the part costs $1000. I guess 4 hours and $15 worth of oil is OK, we'll see how long it runs now.
Yesterday the transmission on the lawn tractor went out. It's hydrostatic. After consulting the great Google, I decided to try draining and replacing the fluid in it. It does seem to have lost a bit of fluid, and what was in it was BLACK. According to the manual and online sources, it takes 20W50 (light gear lube). I got some at Meijers but it was "motorcycle oil" only available in high grade, name brand stuff, so I paid $5/qt for it (needed 3 qts). It took a bit over an hour to get the tranny out of the tractor, an hour for the fluid to drain into a bucket, about 5 minutes to refill it, and about 45 minutes to put it back together again.
Seems to be working. It was pretty sluggish at first as I had been warned it would be, since it had a lot of air in the system. But it ran for 30 minutes while I mowed the front lawn, and by the end of it it was running as normal. I should probably top it off before using it again.
So, an afternoon shot, but the cheapest alternative would be to take it to a shop; I've been told that shops do not try to fix these, they just install a new tranny, and just the part costs $1000. I guess 4 hours and $15 worth of oil is OK, we'll see how long it runs now.
