finish mower oil from vent

[kemary]

I vote for the corn head grease. If you have never used it, it is quite thin and works well in this type of gearbox. If the mower was from a golf course, I'm sure it has lots of hours but if it runs smooth I wouldn't worry about the hours.

 

[Soundguy]

yep.. could be anything.

if you are tipping to drain, then add in a lil diesel and spin the pto for a minute.. then drain.

that fitting is most likely pipe thread.. if so you are in business. many local hardware stores sell short threaded pipe sections.

if not.. heck.. make it from pvc.. a piece of 1" - 2" pipe 3-4" long, a cap, and then a reducer bushing down to 1/2" or whatever it is..and threaded end... doing it that way with the reducer you could even put a piece window screening wadded up inside the 'breather' to trap big debri and furthere help with oil moving out. then drill a tiny 1/8 MAX hole just under the farthest part the cap seats..so she can breathe.

that and the heavy gear oil and a couple squirts of gun grease and she's liekly done.

who knows.. she might have had jack oil or a palin hyd oil with no anti-foam properties in there..

soundguy

 

[Gator6x4]

I have found the Valvoline 80-90 GL-5 synthetic oil does not seem to foam quite as much in gear boxes. The synthetic also seems to tolerate heat better.

 

[IslandTractor]

All of the Caroni flail mowers seem to puke out oil from the breather cap. Basically it looks like the factory dipstick is just calibrated wrong so it encourages people to put in too much oil and the gears just fling it up against the breather cap once the oil warms up. It stops leaking when the dipstick shows minimally acceptable oil level. I wonder if too much oil could be part of the OP's problem.

I put in a two inch stand off on mine which works fine but I think just keeping a lower oil level would work just as well.

 

[tornadowatchranch]

land pride answered back already and said that there is a spring or diaphragm in the vent. They said to either blow it out with air or order a new one. Will try that and post back after completed.

 

[tornadowatchranch]

First of all thanks for the help.

Here is my solution for the benefit of the helpers and also the future "searchers"

First I tried to order the vent plug but a solid plug was shipped. I was not comfortable with that so I started with possible solutions:

1. built the stand off that soundguy and island tractor talked about--still foams out

2. drained the gear oil by picking it up with the FEL and refilled with 80w-90 valvoline--still foams out

3. added some seam foam thinking perhaps it was residual water--still foams out

4. drained again and refilled with chevron 85-140--still foams out

5. drained a few ounces and put in some lucas heavy duty oil stabilizer (that is some thick stuff) it foams up into the stand off but never came out. finally problem solved! I mowed for about 20 minutes and no problems. If it foams next summer in the heat will probably use some more lucas. I still don稚 know why it foams so badly but this seems to have solved the problem

Now it is time to clean off all the oil that has leaked and get some touch up paint.

Thanks again for the help

 

[whodat526]

if it starts coming out again try 00 grease it is a gear oil but it thick and made for gear boxes

 

[Soundguy]

if it starts coming out again try 00 grease it is a gear oil but it thick and made for gear boxes

i wouldn't even wait.

I reccomended he put in some grease and do the stand off. whatever the geometry of that box and gears.. it must have the gears turning right on a air/oil boundry foaming it pretty darn good.

imho.. bad design..

soundguy

 

[tornadowatchranch]

Just an update--8 years later and all is well. I have not touched the gearbox as far as a fix since my last post. I mow probably 30 hours a year with it. All is well in Oz.

 

[Soundguy]

good to hear.