520 H

[olddude 10]

Just wondering but how many hours can you expect to get out of that Onan and hydro? I have around 1650 hours on this tractor and it's still going. It doesn't use any oil between changes but I do have a small leak somewhere in the hydraulics. I don't know if it is really a leak maybe just coming out of a vent some place. I never see it dripping but you can see where dust and dirt will build up in the back end.

 

If it pooped out on me the next time I went to use it I can only say it don't owe me a dang thing. I wore out about 5 of those MTD, Lowes/home depot play toys before I got this tractor in 96 and it's still going. I did wear out one 48" deck and I did replace the two front tires and a battery or two but other than that everything else is still going. I know the old girl can't last forever and was wondering how much more fun I can still have on the old girl. She ain't as shiny as she once was and the seat is a little raggedy. She is a little harder to start if I let her sit for a week without starting her up but when it does she brings a smile to my tired old face.

[haydendavid380 759]

Hour, like age, are just a number.

 

Properly maintained I wouldn't see why it wouldn't last another 1500 hours. 

 

I've seen abused engines lock up with less than 50 on them. 

 

Use the hour meter as a tool of when to do maintenance, not something to fret over.

[Ed Kennell 35,758]

That leak could be the oil filter base plate.  There are only two small bolts and a thin gasket surface where the plate bolts to the block.   The tins should be removed and the leak fixed.  The oil is blown across the rear cylinder colling fins making a sticky mess that the grass clippings adhere to causing the rear cylinder to heat up an loosen the valve seat.       This is about the only thing that will kill your Onan.

Fix the leak, clean the cooling fins, and it will serve you for another 25 years.

 

I just reread your post, and I see the leak you refer to is in the transmission.    The fins on the hydro also need to be cleaned and free of oil.

 

The engine tins also should be removed and those fins cleaned.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Ed Kennell

[olddude 10]

19 hours ago, Ed Kennell said:

That leak could be the oil filter base plate.  There are only two small bolts and a thin gasket surface where the plate bolts to the block.   The tins should be removed and the leak fixed.  The oil is blown across the rear cylinder colling fins making a sticky mess that the grass clippings adhere to causing the rear cylinder to heat up an loosen the valve seat.       This is about the only thing that will kill your Onan.

Fix the leak, clean the cooling fins, and it will serve you for another 25 years.

 

I just reread your post, and I see the leak you refer to is in the transmission.    The fins on the hydro also need to be cleaned and free of oil.

 

The engine tins also should be removed and those fins cleaned.

Thanks Some oil does seem to lay around the oil filter but I always thought it was just where oil leaked out when changing the oil filter. I usually spray the area with brake clean and blow it out with air when I change the filter but it seems some always gets left behind for dust to hook on to. I'll check that plate the next time I do an oil or filter change. Thanks for the tip.

 

A couple years ago when I had my beater deck on the tractor and was cleaning up around the woody area around the yard a stick got hung up under the tractor and it knocked off all the blades on that plastic cooling fan. I didn't know it had happened until the next spring when I put the grass cutting deck back on. I noticed the hydro temp light came on when I was cutting some thick heavy grass and I stopped and let it cool off. When I got back to the shop and cleaned her off I looked in and saw that the blades were gone. I had to cut the grass several times that spring like that because I could not find one anywhere. I finally found one somewhere and put it back on and never had any more problems again but I did notice it had vented some oil out the vent fitting I guess from being run a little warm. I wish they had made that back drive pulley with fan blades rather than that plastic thing that is on there. It's been knocked off several times and most of the time you hear it but that one time I didn't hear a thing.

[olddude 10]

21 hours ago, haydendavid380 said:

Hour, like age, are just a number.

 

Properly maintained I wouldn't see why it wouldn't last another 1500 hours. 

 

I've seen abused engines lock up with less than 50 on them. 

 

Use the hour meter as a tool of when to do maintenance, not something to fret over.

I hear ya........I never paid much attention about age until I passed 60 then you seem to appreciate each passing day a little more but I still have to wonder sometimes. I don't put the hours on it like I did when I was cutting grass for the church I went to years ago. Cutting grass 3, maybe 4 days a week until dark for about 4 years then keeping up with my grass at home really piled on the hours. Now I don't put 100 hrs a year on it just keeping my Zoysia cut. I change it once a year in the spring after it greens up and she gets a new set of blades and belts and new air filter. Sometimes if it gets dry and there is a lot of dust flying like in the fall I will just do a oil filter change and top off the oil and most times in the spring the oil still looks like it could go another 50 hours but it get's changed anyway. Of course I will clean the air filter every second or third cutting and check all the fluid levels.