Did several little things but no pics.
A few days ago, noticed about 6oz hydraulic fluid on the floor directly under the rattle vent on the bell housing. Not great, but I’d been swapping stuff on both front and rear remotes earlier and moving the tractor around while doing that. The Pioneer quick connects usually dribble a little when disconnected, so a bit on the floor isn’t exactly odd after hydraulic disconnection but this seemed to be too much. Depressed the rattle vent thing and nothing came out. Cleaned the floor and left it.
Next morning after nothing but sitting overnight, a new little puddle in the same place. Great. 608 hours, out of warranty, and it’s looking like the HST is leaking into the bell housing. Checked the engine oil. Not gaining, so at least that was good. Still nothing coming out when manually depressing the rattle vent.
Recalled I changed the HST filter 8 engine hours ago. Haven’t had a spin on filter of any sort leak since I don’t know when, but figure it’s worth tightening a bit more and taking it off to check the seal for damage or double seal or other issues if a little more torque doesn’t fix it. It’s really not all that close to where the puddles were, but I know sometimes fluid runs a ways before dripping off and that’s the only thing out of the ordinary recently. Tightened the filter an additional 1/8 turn, which made it a good bit tighter than normal.
Two days and 4 engine hours later, no more leak. Very thankful the tractor doesn’t need to be split to replace a seal. Not looking forward to removing the HST filter next time it needs changing.
