I noticed oil coming out of one of the front axle below the knuckle. I have attached picture to show the area. I also noticed that my front is loader is not holding pressure....it was a foot off the ground when I went to bed last night ....and on the ground this morning.....have not seen any hydraulic leaks at this point....best plan of action here would be ????
Scott
I'm not sure that you have any problems that need repair. Sounds like normal wear. I've got all the books and manuals, but if I remember correctly there isn't even a seal in that area. There are other seals, but not there. The way that Yanmar built their tower gear front end was in three sections and when I used to look at them on the bench I always wondered if they originally started designing them to hold three separate oil supplies. One for the center front differential and one each for the tower gears that drive the front stub axles. Yanmar never did explain the front end oil requirements to my satisfaction. What happens is - usually -after draining all the old fluid from the front axle that you can, you put in oil via the filler plug on top of the center axle section to about the level to cover the axle. That's hard enough to tell, but that's not the whole story. There are sometimes (not always!) three drain plugs! One is always under the center axle section plus sometimes one each under the right and left tower gears that drive the front wheels. But the not always. Not all of the iterations of the tower gear lower plates had those drain plugs by the tires. On most, the tower gears seem to get their lube by what makes it's way through the spaces between the balls in the bearings for the axles that drive the right angle tower gears. Alternately, you can take off one of the mounting bolts on the top of the tower gear housing and inject some oil in there...but if you put oil in that way there will be too much oil so that it will run out of the joint that your picture is pointing at. It causes a mess, but not a real problem. Maybe there is some info in the old service notes. I'll look up some of those this evening. But it sounds like you are fine. Sorry to ramble on so much, but the truth is that those early tower gear front ends are wonderful designs but they will often leak a bit there where your picture shows plus they will always leak there if overfilled or too much oil makes it way to the towers. No real problem with the leak, what you want to make sure is that there isn't any water that made it's way inside and is standing in the lowest places. And if yours doesn't have the three drain plugs that can be difficult to decide.
I'd say don't worry about it and do get an original shop and parts manual and try to figure out how yours should be. Yanmar made several changes to those parts. Till then just use it.
No, I doubt you tied it down too tight and hurt anything... but cranking down on front tydowns will obviously put all the clearances to one side and make any normal seepage leak faster.
As for the loader or 3 pt dropping overnight the truth is that almost all implements do that. Most - not all - will leak down. Some take an hour and others take all night. Every tractor and every brand either does that or can sometimes do that and it's normal too. I've a 30 year old Yanmar the doesn't and one that does. So leave the implements down when you park. It's safer that way and protects against kids playing with levers and dropping heavy metal on their toes. Yanmar does give a spec for leakdown on new parts for the 3pt and if I remember right the factory limit is one inch in 30 minutes. Frankly, most are set up better than that, and some are less worn or were just made tighter and will stay up all night and others will not. Again, all tractors can/will leak down and drop their implements to the ground slowly but at varying speeds after you shut it down. Partly it's how they were set up and partly how the hydraulic clearances wear. You could probably change that, but the answer is: Don't leave them raised up.
Enjoy, rScotty
. No magic on the loader leakdown, other than to ID the offending part and rebuild/replace.