400 hr service on a L4060

[BeezFun]

Send the fluid to Blackstone for analysis. That will tell you how much life it had left and give you a baseline for future test results. I sample the transmission fluid on our car before I change it, that's a lot cheaper than changing it before it needs it.

 

[mikester]

You will hear many opinions but I see no reason at all to be changing the hydraulic fluid at 400 hours. Why ? Who says ? Many things suggested in owner's manuals make little sense. Some good, some "maybe" and some silly.

I find my machine a LOT quieter and the HST more responsive after a complete fluid change.

You can save even more time and money by not changing filters too.

Maybe this is why I don't like buying used equipment...

 

[5030]

I use a 20 gallon screened oil tray on wheels. Low profile making it easier to get where you need it.

It has a drain valve making it easier to transfer waste oil back into the empty 5 gallon pails. I found this a lot less messy than juggling oil pans.

A LOT of fluid will come out the main drain and filters on my machine.

My M's both hold around 15 gallons of fluid each and I use a plasma cut aluminum truck fuel tank as a drain pan. Tig welded handles on it. It will hold over 20 gallons of fluid no issue and I use a Harbor Freight 10 buck battery pump to drain it. I did replace the D cell batteries with Li-Ion rechargeable ones as the pump eats regular D cells pretty quick. Nice thing about my M's is, there is only one drain plug other than the filters.

I do recycle the used oil in my waste oil furnace too.

 

[Fallon]

Pull a hydraulic line. Put it in the bucket. Work the lever to fill the bucket. Probably don't want to do that for more than a bucket & a half. Then drain the remaining 4ish gallons out the bottom manually.

 

[Fastball714]

I did my service today. I tried the pump and was only able to remove about 4 gallons. I removed the drains on each side of rear axle one at a time and was able to control the flow without making a mess. These were 14mm bolts. I drained my oil pan after each one. There's a larger drain, 24mm, that drains straight down. It was easy to screw the drain back in and empty my oil pan. It contained most of the fluid. I had to empty it twice on this drain plug.
I think next time, I will skip the pump. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. The filter had almost no fluid when replacing them. The total for filters and hydraulic oil was $690. This included an outer air filter and a fuel filter.