New Tractor Break-in procedure

[ff1221]

Yep the technician told me to leave the Hydro til 200hrs, won't be long before I'm doing it the way this winter is going.

 

[Catman8]

This is an old thread from 2013, I wonder if they are using break in oil on their compact tractors now, earlier on in the thread an email from John Deere said they were not. I am at the 50 hour mark and I am surprised how clean this Diesel engine oil is compared to my other Diesel engines that are coal black all the time, was your oil this clean at 50 hours. If the break in period is 100 hours do I need to put break in oil back in for the remaining 50 hours.

 

[Catman8]

My service manual says to change the oil and trans fluid at 50 hour, I just got off the phone with my local John Deere service manager and he said thats ridiculous, I wouldn't touch either until you reach 200 hours.

I hate when you get two different opinions from the same company, who do you belive.:confused3:

 

[roadhunter]

The funniest thing about this is the people who put the least hours on machines are the ones who worry the most about stuff like this. Little CUT's who live in the garage and get 20 hours a year of easy use while the owner changes oil every year because the manual says to.

These are the machines to look for if you can find them used. Probably have 100-200 hours and the owner finally got sent to the nursing home or dies and the tractor is in pristine condition with barely a scratch. Most implements are barely used and it's had 9 oil changes in 123 hours of use. LOL

 

[sixdogs]

My service manual says to change the oil and trans fluid at 50 hour, I just got off the phone with my local John Deere service manager and he said thats ridiculous, I wouldn't touch either until you reach 200 hours.

I hate when you get two different opinions from the same company, who do you belive.:confused3:

It's SOP to change oil in most new machinery at 50 hours and the manual says so. I generally do what the manual says and not necessarily listen to others in dispute. Even guys with huge equipment around here do an initial change at 50 or 100 hours. Sure, some of us don't put enough hours on during a year or so and while we may change at a shorter hour interval, I'll bet other issues like condensation and multiple starts cause as much of a change requirement as number of hours and I'm OK with it. No matter what we do, most of us will never wear out our equipment.

 

[Catman8]

I guess there is only two possible scenarios, one, the engineers who design this machinery have done test and know that changing the oil at 50 hours and following the manual that they wrote is beneficial to the Long Jevity of your machinery. Or Two, they figure by telling everyone to change the oil earlier than you need to will gross the company millions. I guess it's a personal choice the owner of the equipment needs to make.

 

[beenthere]

Might just be that they preached 50 hour oil changes for so long, that they don't have enough reason to jump it to a higher number (in the printed manual).
Not a big deal to me, just change when feel it is right. Dust conditions, hours of heavy use, etc., etc. leads the reasons to change.

 

[kcflhrc]

If it's under warranty I **** sure would be following what's in the manual

 

[rScotty]

Might just be that they preached 50 hour oil changes for so long, that they don't have enough reason to jump it to a higher number (in the printed manual).
Not a big deal to me, just change when feel it is right. Dust conditions, hours of heavy use, etc., etc. leads the reasons to change.

That sounds right to me. It is always a surprise to young engineers just how engineering decisions get made. They always come in thinking that we have infinite time and money so that everything gets tested. Shucks, it isn't unusual at all to find that decisions on "fuzzy" things like maintenance intervals are based simply on what has worked historically. Management wants a number today... right now,... and we don't have time or money to make a lot of tests unless we are having a problem. So we choose a number that we can all agree on. Engineers being what they are, we know our choice is going to be conservative. I suspect that a lot of professions work in a similar way. The other side of the story is that we all know we have to be willing to make changes if & when there is clear evidence that there is a better way.

In this case we have some clues as to what we are dealing with. We we do know that break-in involves flushing out the debris created when the machine is assembled as well as dealing with all the wear particles created during initial break-in. So at some point as it things settle down there is going to be some unknown amount of unwanted material that is hopefully caught by the filters....and we want to swap those filters and the micro-contaminated oil out before either one becomes saturated....but we want to be smart about not doing it too soon....

That may be why on so many manufacturers of tractors and heavy equipment you'll see recommendations to change oil+filters at 50 and 200 hours and then go to a more normal much longer change interval. It works for me; I can't think of any reason not to follow that schedule. It's conservative, but not too much so.

BTW, I haven't seen special "break-in oil" used in about the last 50 years. I do remember it before then. But today I would simply use the recommended oil.
rScotty

 

[Catman8]

If it's under warranty I **** sure would be following what's in the manual

My thoughts exactly I can just here it now, your tractor failed because we found tiny metal partials in the system, did you by chance do your 50 hour service

 

[sixdogs]

The thing that always caused me to do the 50 hour service was the fact, not only of small metal and sand particles but also solvents and lubes used in assembly. I had a larger Deere once that required the break-in oil to stay for the first 100 hours but I wanted to do a change at 50 hours. I just changed with fresh Deere break-in oil and went to regular oil at 100 hours. Worked for me.

 

[Quebecguy]

BTW, I haven't seen special "break-in oil" used in about the last 50 years. I do remember it before then. But today I would simply use the recommended oil.
rScotty

This is from the Operator's Manual of my John Deere 5205 which I bought new about 10 or 11 years ago:

"New engines are filled at the factory with John Deere ENGINE BREAK-IN OIL..... Continue to use ENGINE BREAK-IN OIL until 100 hours is reached." (those capital letters are from the original text)

It goes on to say to keep using break-in oil for 2 or 3 oil changes if the engine has been under light load.

 

[Catman8]

This is from the Operator's Manual of my John Deere 5205 which I bought new about 10 or 11 years ago:

"New engines are filled at the factory with John Deere ENGINE BREAK-IN OIL..... Continue to use ENGINE BREAK-IN OIL until 100 hours is reached." (those capital letters are from the original text)

It goes on to say to keep using break-in oil for 2 or 3 oil changes if the engine has been under light load.

Part # YT26661. TY26663

 

[sixdogs]

You have to give credit to Deere for having the best of quality in lubricating oils and greases. They seem to have every base covered and I think that's a good part of their following. BTW, Quebecguy, the 5205 is a nice tractor and getting hard to find.

 

[ray66v]

My thoughts exactly I can just here it now, your tractor failed because we found tiny metal partials in the system, did you by chance do your 50 hour service

Are their threads on TBN, where this type of failure has happened? Or, threads where any manufacturer, disputed any owner on their maintenance, resulting in refusal of a warranty repair as a result? I'm not seeing them.

We are not seeing any number of oil related failures, even on older machines.

Early catastrophic failures, are the result of manufacturing defects. There isn't anything to debate when parts fail that early. It would be ludicrous for them to even suggest it.

And they also know, when it got out on internet, it would cost them 1000 times more in business, than they could ever loose on the repair.

 

[Catman8]

I bought HY-Guard trans/hydraulic fluid and it's clear in color, my tractors sight glass is red and I looked at all the tractors on the JD lot and the sight glasses were red also. The parts guy said he does not sell red dye. So why is the HY-Guard clear and the sight glass red.

 

[rScotty]

This is from the Operator's Manual of my John Deere 5205 which I bought new about 10 or 11 years ago:

"New engines are filled at the factory with John Deere ENGINE BREAK-IN OIL..... Continue to use ENGINE BREAK-IN OIL until 100 hours is reached." (those capital letters are from the original text)
It goes on to say to keep using break-in oil for 2 or 3 oil changes if the engine has been under light load.

Well, there you go... O).. I haven't bought a new JD in a long while. In fact the last 3 new tractors I bought were not JD* and they did not specify any special break-in oil. So I haven't had occasion to use it. But I agree it's hard to go wrong using the oil recommended in the manual...
rScotty

*although I'll confess that I went to look at JD's offerings first, as always....and decided against them reluctantly. Although we were not price shopping, we noticed that a person does tend to save money with some other brands - except for Cat.

 

[Catman8]

I bought HY-Guard trans/hydraulic fluid and it's clear in color, my tractors sight glass is red and I looked at all the tractors on the JD lot and the sight glasses were red also. The parts guy said he does not sell red dye. So why is the HY-Guard clear and the sight glass red.

:anyone:

 

[RLstangs]

The factory uses a leak find dye to find leaks on the final assembly line inspection.

 

[rScotty]

:anyone:

From the way your question is worded I'm guessing that the sight glass isn't normally red color. It sounds like you are saying that it looks like something has dyed the sight glass red.
If that's so....well, this is just a guess....but are all the other tractors you are looking at with the red sight glass used tractors? The reason that I ask is it used to be pretty common practice to mix ATF with the hydraulic fluid - there are even some folks who still do - especially in the winter or real cold climates. And ATF has a stong red dye.
You'll get the full range of opinions on whether mixing was a good thing to do or not. BTW, it wasn't done to save money; ATF tends to be more expensive than most hydraulic fluids.
Now that there are more reasonably priced low viscosity hydraulic fluids and even some reasonably priced synthetics I imagine the practice will die out.
rScotty