I need to replace a wheel motor in my skid steer because it is leaking into the chain case. It hasn't been leaking very long but I'm wondering if there's ways to check if there's any contamination in the oil or just the motor wore out? The reservoir has an inspection plate and it supposed to have a magnetic drain plug. I could cut the filter open but that would only tell me what got to the filter. Would taking an oil sample determine if the oils contaminated? I will drain the oil and change the filter but hoping I don't have to take the hydro pumps and everything apart to flush them individually. The other motor was done 800-1000 hours ago and this one has about 4300 hours on it. I haven't abused it but have done some pretty heavy digging with it.
If you haven't already sampled, you have nothing to compare against. You haven't lost any travel or work functionality, you just started leaking, correct?. If that is the case, I'd do just what your doing. Change oil n filter. Run it a day, sample the oil and send it out for a baseline measurement. Then, annual testing depending on how much you use it.