I'm confused to the point of my head hurting. I'm looking for what weight of oils I need to run in different areas of my 955H (60A). Research on the interweb (internet never lies!!), shows the final drives should be TDTO. Additional research shows Cat TDTO oil as 60wt oil. I don't know if this is accurate as the only 60 wt oil I can find is multi weight motorcycle oil. I'm currently running Rotella T1 SAE 30 wt in everything except hydraulics (Hydrotex in the hydraulics). I'm doing this because an ol' timer said to run 30 wt in everything. Was he wrong?? Should I pull the 30 wt engine oil (T1) out of the trans, range box and finals and replace it with 30, 40 or 50 wt trans oil?? I also had 3 leaking rollers and topped them off with T1 30 wt engine oil. Near as I can date, this machine is a 1961. I'm hoping that all oils needed for this machine are backwards compatible. I know very new machines are not that way. I'm not interested in going to Cat to get "their" oil. I would rather get oil on the open market, even if the only thing available is synthetic. I have a leak in the L final and now would be the time to figure out ALL the correct oils to use.
That is not correct. TDTO is available in 10W, 30, 50, & 60 viscosities. TDTO is a Cat-branded product that as you say you don’t have to buy. The commercial equivalent to TDTO is known as TO-4, available in the same viscosities as above. When I get time I’ll look up a maintenance manual for your machine. Maybe post some photos so that it can be confirmed as a 60A.
I remember in olden days when oil was series 3 you needed two barrels of oil one of 30 wt and one of ten wt and 50 wt was in the finals I can remember if you opened final and smelled 90 wt you knew it had the wrong oil in it
Regarding TDTO (Transmission & Drive Train Oil) strictly speaking it only goes up to SAE 50 viscosity. There is an oil with a slighlty different formulation that is classifed FDAO (Final Drive & Axle Oil), not being intended for transmission use. That oil is available in SAE 50 & 60 viscosities. As mentioned above by @pittsburgh cat man don't use any sort of EP gear oil in those final drives.
Thanx guys. I'm gonna leave the 30 wt in the trans and change the Finals to 50 wt. I don't think running engine oil in the trans will hurt. It just means I paid too much for my trans oil as I didn't need all the engine additives.
I disagree. The additives related to friction materials and for controlling gear wear that a transmission oil needs will be missing from the engine oil that you are currently using. If it was mine it would get TO-4 SAE 30 in the transmisison.
That’s a bad idea,….. costly in the long run.
Indubitably. Even back in the day when this tractor was built TO-2 oil (superseded by TO-4 over 40 years ago) was specified for Cat transmissions.
Well, if I have to change it, I'm going synthetic
AFAIK there is no such thing as a synthetic TO-4 oil. Scratch that. I see that Conoco make one.
On a machine that old you would be wasting your money buying a synthetic oil IMHO. Unless you are running the machine at least 50 hrs/wk you will be changing the transmission oil on a time basis, not on hours. Under those circumstances using a synthetic oil would be throwing money down the drain.
I don't run synthetic in any of our diesels. On gas engines, it's only synthetic for us. on our 955 15w40 napa brand in diesel engine 30 weight cat in trans 50 weight cat in final drives 10 weight cat in hydro