2nd large fluid leak in 6 clock hours!

[john_bud]

Sad news, my L3410 HST has puked it's hydraulic fluid out past the O-ring of the spin on filter, AGAIN. This happened once before at the Christmas holiday. The dealer came out, hauled the tractor to the shop found the problem and promptly returned it. Now, only 6 clock hours later, same thing. Of course, now I NEED it to move giant mounds of snow before it dumps on us again. As I was starting to move snow when the leak occurred, I have fluid trails up and down and all around. Naturally, they are contained to the areas that will be lawn when the snow melts /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif.

I went to the dealer today and spoke to the owner, the service department is closed for the weekend, but they will pick it up on Monday. He is now wondering if there is an imperfection in the casting that is causing the O-ring to fail. He and the service manager will be calling Kubota to see if they know anything about the root cause.

Leakingly yours, /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
John Bud

 

[Thomas]

Sorry to hear about the bad luck again.
Man I would want and answer or two on this issue,for its not the parts that cost its the down time on your Kubota.

Maybe the dealer can drop off spare model until yours is repaired.

Thomas..NH /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[TWINKLE_TOES]

<font color=blue>"imperfection in the casting that is causing the O-ring to fail"</font color=blue>

John,
Thats not to bad a guess. The first change of the hydraulic oil filter on my B21, I noticed a shoulder on about one third of the curcumference outside of the machined surface for the filter and O-ring. The clearance between the filter when seated and the shoulder was nil. Couple that with an aftermarket filter of slight larger diameter and I would have had problem. All of the filters oil and Hydraulic(2) that I purchased from my dealer were physically different than the original factory filters, shorter or smaller diameter. Also note the many posts on Kubota filter part number problems on this board./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[john_bud]

Thanks Twinkle, (or is it Mr. Toes to me?/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif)

I will certainly be wanting to give the tractor a physical inspection with my own two eyes when it is in the shop.

You know what is really sad about this whole deal? It's when my son sees the tractor now sitting on the lawn, he isn't begging for a ride, he's saying, "Tractor Broken!"/w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif. Now that's not something you want to hear, especially about a Kubota!

Oh well nobody's perfect, not even Kubota's engineers and workers. At least my local dealer is strongly standing behind the product and providing good service and support, so I am not worried about it eventually being fixed. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

John Bud

 

[Rowski]

John,

I don't know if this will help, probably will sound silly to boot. I have had a problem with an oil filter once. Ended up being that it (I) was tightening it to tight. What happens is as you keep tightening the filter the o-ring gets crushed and gets slightly cut by the twisting motion. Usually on the oil filter or on the lid of the box it tells you how to tighten it properly, something similar to "tighten till gasket contacts housing then another 1 1/2 turns". Some times tighter isn't always better.

I'm sure you dealer and/or Kubota will get to the bottom of the mystery!

Derek

 

[Bird]

Derek, I don't know for sure how other people do it, but I use a filter wrench to get spin on filters off; never use one to put a filter on. I only tighten it as much as I can with one hand. And so far, I've never had one leak for any reason.

Bird

 

[Rowski]

Bird that is how I do it too. I think I have a paper at the shop that talks about tightening oil spin-on filters. Personally I like the cartride type oil filters. I'll see about getting that paper, depends on what mother nature brings me this week! I hope this tractor forum is still around went I retire, maybe then I can al least keep up with the posts!

Derek

 

[Bird]

Derek, I was a teenager, working in Dad's service station, when the first cars came out with spin on filters instead of the cannister and cartridge. And we used to sell adapters, especially for V-8 Ford products, to change to the new spin on filters. And that was how I was taught to R&R spin on filters back then. That's one of the few things that I haven't changed in all these years./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Bird

 

[JATO_RaT]

My guess without seeing the tractor isn't a casting problem as most all castings eventually get machined when mating surfaces are required. I would think either a pressure problem as the o ring/gasket on a filter is large and thick and more prone to a blow out then one that has very little surface area and is completely contained, or perhaps a coincidence that you have had to imperfect filters in a row. Amsoil has sent me 3 oil filters now with bad threads. Hope you get this frustrating problem remedied, Rat...

 

[john_bud]

All,
Thanks for the input. I doubt the filter was over tightened both times, but it could have been. Or maybe just my luck to be getting 2 bad filters in a row!

Here are some additional clues (maybe); both times this occurred it was COLD. First time was -20F and the filter leaked while the tractor was warming up in its shed (1500rpm). Yesterday it was -12F overnight and up to 0F when I was operating the tractor. I warmed the tractor up at 1500 rpm for 20 to 30 minutes. The leak started shortly after I began to operate the FEL. Could the cold fluid in the FEL have thickened the viscosity of the oil enough to cause a blow out? Right now, I'm just guessing!

Note; I always set the rpm's to 1500 when shutting down the tractor. That way I can tell when it is warm enough to use next time I fire it up. The cold oil and hydro fluid keep the rpm's down until everything is toasty warm like it was when I finished the time before. Just a Wisconsin cold weather trick to easily tell if it's really warm or not.

I'm not depressed, my dealer and Kubota will solve the problem (that's my story and I'm sticking to it) /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif.

John Bud