I have a John Deere 410 with water in the fluid. What is the procedure to drain all of the fluid out(or most)? Would I have to disconnect the hoses leading to all the hydraulic rams to drain then separately? Thanks
Yes, the more cylinders and lines/hoses you can get the oil out of the better. Make sure you check the suction strainer in the bottom of the transmission case and replace the transmission and hydraulic return filters. You may have to change the oil more than once to get it cleaned up. It only takes a small amount of water to make the oil milky. Check the boots on the shifter levers, that's usually how water gets in the trans./hydraulic oil.
I forgot to mention that it's best to use John Deere Hy-gard hydraulic oil or another quality that meets the same specs. The higher quality oil have additives that allow water to mix with the oil which is better than the water separating and and going to the bottom of whatever component it's in. They also have additives that help prevent the wet brake disks material from deteriorating.
Thanks, For the info.
Do a search for draining hydraulic fluid, there's a few pretty good write ups. It's kind of a drag to do well.
It is not possible to completely drain a hydraulic system in a TLB With out completely disassembling it. I doubt if very many people have done it that way. Flushing one to eliminate water in the fluid is commonly done. I have done it and the oil was in pristine condition when I was done. Service manuals usually have the instructions on how to do it. It requires a lot of new oil. I posted a thread in this forum with details when I did mine.
HeavyEquipmentForums This was for a Case 580 SE and between this and Tinkerers advice, it worked great. Should be pretty much the same for a JD. Good luck!
Thank, Harley and Tinkerer for your help. It is running way better with the screen cleaned. I just soaked the filters in a bucket of water with dawn dish detergent and rinsed it really good and let dry out for a day in the sun and reused it since I am only going to run it for an hour or so and drain again. They only had about 10 hours or less. Still milky but less and it is emulsified I could not get the water to separate by letting it sit. I even tried freezing it.
I've found even doing somewhat of a total flush twice (with a long usage period between) has made mine much better. I'm sure I didn't get all the water out but most. I park it inside now too which I'm sure helps.