Hydro drain bolt stripped

[sgoldste01]

I ended up using a Helicoils-like solution. It's not a Helicoil brand, but I can't tell the difference. I bought the kit I needed at my local Autozone. Seemed to work perfectly, and allowed me to use my original drain bolts.

What's surprising me is how hard it is to fill the tranny with the new fluid. I know it doesn't have the full 4.5 L in it, but it's taking new fluid VERY slowly. I keep running it and moving the tractor, but this doesn't seem to be releasing the air pockets as quickly as I would have expected.

I went with Castrol SYNTEC 5w50 for my replacement fluid.

 

[rtsherrod]

I'm a little late with my suggestion, but here goes for future reference.

An alternative to thread cutting screws are thread rolling screws. When looking down the screw towards the head, the threaded portion is tri-lobular and tapered for a short distance. These screws actually cold form the threads into the material which is much stronger.

Taptite is the brand that comes to mind as I remember them being used in the manufacture of a cab at my former employer. They were a 1/4-20 x 1/2 flange head screw and worked wonders.

They are not to be found in most hardware stores, but they are available from the likes of Fastenal.

Bobby

 

[sgoldste01]

I ended up using a Helicoils-like solution. It's not a Helicoil brand, but I can't tell the difference. I bought the kit I needed at my local Autozone. Seemed to work perfectly, and allowed me to use my original drain bolts.

What's surprising me is how hard it is to fill the tranny with the new fluid. I know it doesn't have the full 4.5 L in it, but it's taking new fluid VERY slowly. I keep running it and moving the tractor, but this doesn't seem to be releasing the air pockets as quickly as I would have expected.

I went with Castrol SYNTEC 5w50 for my replacement fluid.

Is it normal for it to be so difficult to get the full amount of new tranny fluid into the tranny? How many times driving the machine is required to purge all of the air from the tranny? Or is it possible that I didn't fully drain the old fluid, and that's why it's not taking the full amount? I did notice that the old fluid drained rapidly from the front drain plug, but that the rear drain plug didn't flow quickly; rather, fluid dripped from the rear drain plug one glob at a time, with several seconds of nothing between each glob.

Is this normal?