We have a 2004 ZX200LC that was pushing milky brownish grease around swing bearing until a couple days ago when it totally blew something and drained about 3/4 of the hydraulic oil in five minutes out the bottom of the stump pan. I took the rotary manifold out thinking that it had blown seals. They seem fine and the unit itself looks in really good shape. The swing drive has the right amount of gear oil in it and has no hydraulic oil pushed into it. I couldn't see any blown hoses underneath the unit, but I was working on it myself and should have had someone run it first to see where oil was spraying instead of spending hours ripping stuff apart first.:Banghead Any ideas???? Oh, by the way, where is the door to check grease for the swing gear on this unit???
If you've got milky liquid coming from around your swing bearing seal you either have water or hydraulic oil in the bearing cavity. Check the rubber boot around the rotary manifold to make sure there are no cracks in it and that it is seated firmly on the car body floor. Also make sure that the floor is clean and the drain holes are not plugged so no water can puddle up around the rotary area.You can seal the boot up with silicone if you want also. If you lost that much hydraulic oil that quickly and it's not the rotary you had to have blown a hose. I don't remember for sure on a ZX200 but there should be an oval plate with 2 bolts, maybe in the right front box?
I just checked the Deere parts websight and it shows on the 200 that the plate is down at the base of the boom.
Yea if you walk up to boom should be under the right side of main boom pin (looking at pin from ground) maybe 3-5 inches wide with two bolts in it. Is the swing gear over filled or drained as well? When it blew something what was occurring with machine? Walking, digging, settin....
Thanks, I will check the grease in the swing gear next. I was walking the machine when it seemed to lose power on the one side. I got out and saw oil on the snow. After attempting to move it again, it had oil pouring out around the stump pan under machine. Seeing that much oil, I shut it down. There was no oil anywhere on top around any of the pumps or anywhere visible from the top. The boot around rotary manifold seemed good when I took it apart, but that whole area in there is often dirty and full of snow and ice at this time of the year. I guess that's why I couldn't see the plate where you say it is. I figured it had to be in there somewhere, but I'll have to clean some more junk out of there to find it. I couldn't see any ruptured hoses from underneath, but then everything was bathed in oil, so it was hard to tell what happened. Thanks again for the info. I will let you know what I find when we put it back together. We put seals in the rotary manifold while it was out anyway, just in case there was something we were missing.
I suppose it is also possible that we have TWO problems. I was led astray by the fact that we were squeezing oily grease out around swing bearing. Who knows, maybe it will still do that and we just blew a hose somewhere too. There's no law saying you can't have more than one problem at a time!
If the oil is from the swing gear on the car body, it has to be from the swing drive. The rotary manifold can`t get oil in the gear., it would leak onto the ground from the manifold.
I don't want to start an argument, but a leaking rotary will definitely leak oil into the swing gear area. I've changed many of them that did. If you look at a rotary manifold the spindle bolts to the car body and the housing to the track frame so the actual joint area is right in the middle of the swing gear. The top bushing and seal go bad and leak externally.
We got the rotary manifold back in, but since it's "Family Day" here in Saskatchewan, nobody is open to get enough hydraulic oil to refill system to see if we cured our problem or just did recreational work. So the stone piles survive another day in the field before we can get back to them. I opened the drain cover on the bottom the swing gear and there wasn't much in there other than milky looking grease. Took the access door off the top and checked grease level. Definitely low now, but not all full of oil. Seemed like the drain hole in the corner of the frame that goes to the main boom cylinders was plugged with dirt and stuff, and maybe the water was trapped in that corner and finding its way into the swing gear there instead of running off and away. We won't know for sure until we get some oil and fill the hydraulic reservoir up and run it.
As suspected, we had a hose blow to drive and it was pushing back a running out stump pan. So yes, we had two unrelated problems. Still haven't solved the grease around swing bearing but at least we got the oil loss solved.