water in rear end

[Charrie 18]

Hi all.

I recently acquired a 1985 Wheel Horse 416-8 with the Kohler engine on it. PO said it had been parked under a cover for a few years. It shows some weather mild weather damage but can be cleaned up.

Haven't tired to start it yet. PO said he parked it at the end of the season and it wouldn’t start next spring. He did a little work and then acquired a new mower.

We drained the rear end and a lot of clear water came out at first, at least a qt. After the water came some black looking oil. After draining I put in 2 qts of store brand motor oil that was in shed and turned the wheels by hand. Also before the shiftier was a bit hard to change gears but now it seems to work great.

 

What should I do from here?

I read a post to flush with kerosene and another where someone disassembled the rear end and cleaned everything. The latter is probably the best way to go but I wanted to get some opinions.

I did replace a rear axle seal on my 520h and this 416-8 has a leaking seal.

 

Working on building a new storage building but at the moment I really don’t have a good place to disassemble the rear axle. When I was younger my dad taught me how to rebuild small engines but I have always been intimidated by transmissions.

 

Thanks 

Charrie 

[8ntruck 9,186]

Probably would not be a bad idea to use that store brand motor oil (30 wt?) as a flush.  Diesel fuel will work here, too.  After the flush, drain it again and refill with 80wt gear oil - store brand here is adequate.  As part of the flush procedure, you need to run the tractor around for a few minutes, including tight right hand and left hand turns and run it in all gears to thourally circulate the flushing fluid and try to get the crud in the transmission stirred up and suspended in the oil so it gets drained out.

 

When draining the transmission, it helps to raise the front of the tractor as high as safely possible for you.  There is a hump in the floor of the transmission, and raising the front of the tractor allows the oil ahead of the hump to get to the drain plug.

Edited 3 hours ago by 8ntruck