Stackwood
Bronze Member
What a great thread. Thought I'd add several cents worth in order to keep things stirred up.
I recently refurbished a 1986 Chevy Blazer for my daughter to drive. Manual says repack wheel bearings every 15k. Replace diff fluid every 30k. Ouch. You have to take the entire cover off the rear differential to drain it. No wonder GM is suffering. The car has 240k on it. I'm quite certain neither the bearings nor rear end has had any attention in a very long time. In spite of that everything is still good.
In contrast, some Ford front wheel assemblies of similar era have "lifetime lubrication". Of course, they don't specify how long a lifetime is.
Bear with me, I'll get to tractors soon.
My 15 year old Suzuki 4WD has a front diff, rear diff, manual trans and a transfer case. Everything is supposed to be replaced every 60k. After replacing the front diff fluid a few times, I stopped worrying about it because the stuff was as squeaky clean as the day it went in due to the 4wd not being used much. At the opposite end of the spectrum the transfer case fluid shows the most signs of suffering, the most grit and fluid breakdown. What breaks oil down? Heat, pressure, and contaminants in varying amounts. Breakdown is the direct result of use and exposure. No one ever heard of oil going bad while waiting on the shelf.
Tractors. Almost there.
Oil has two big jobs. The first is to provide a film of lubrication between the metal surfaces in our machines, most often utilizing long hydrocarbon chains. The stronger the chains, the higher the pressure they can stand and the longer they'll last, generally speaking. If that was all they had to do, life would be simpler. Unfortunately, oils and their ilk also have to serve as a sewage system. Any contaminants created or imported into the unit end up in the oil. The operating fluid has to carry, neutralize, and barricade off this stuff to keep it from affecting expensive machine parts or breaking down the oil itself. A wide variety of additives are used in an effort to do this.
Looked at from this perspective, it seems to me that the quality of the oil is more important than the oil type, so long as that type is sanctioned by the manufacturer. I'd be happier with high grade gear oil in my front end than UDT manufactured by Frypot inc., and vice versa. As to viscosity, I observe that automatic transmissions are very reliable as a group and often go hundreds of thousands of miles, all the while being lubricated by thin automatic transmission fluid.
Tractors at last. 98% of the tractors on this forum see light or medium duty. Even with lots of neglect I reckon they'd run a very long time without any problems (engine oil excepted). Kubotas benefit from outstanding design, high grade materials, and excellent workmanship. That's why we bought'em. Doing the scheduled maintenance in the first place will have the biggest long term effect, whatever we use.
If the front end of your tractor sees a lot of use, the oil will take a harder beating because of it. If you typically run your loader so full the back end is skipping, those small front wheels and all that drives them are going to work very hard. If you don't have a loader and hardly ever use the 4wd, that front end aint workin' very hard, and neither is the oil that's in it.
Probably the only differences between gear oil, UDT and SUDT that we'd be able to detect are price, power, and fuel economy. Since we tractor nuts are fixated on power, it makes sense to use the thin stuff in order to avoid robbing our metal beasts of efficiency. I'll put a plug in for fuel efficiency, especially in cold operating conditions, thus sparing a precious resource (of course this assumes there aren't big differences in manufacturing inputs). As to price my tractor only has 4.8 hours on it, so I have no idea what the relative costs are.
All this said, it would be really nice to know what the differences are in these three lubricant families. Anyone know of a good website about them?
My 50 cent's worth. Just think, if I did this two more times I'd have spent enough for a cup of coffee.
Stackwood
I recently refurbished a 1986 Chevy Blazer for my daughter to drive. Manual says repack wheel bearings every 15k. Replace diff fluid every 30k. Ouch. You have to take the entire cover off the rear differential to drain it. No wonder GM is suffering. The car has 240k on it. I'm quite certain neither the bearings nor rear end has had any attention in a very long time. In spite of that everything is still good.
In contrast, some Ford front wheel assemblies of similar era have "lifetime lubrication". Of course, they don't specify how long a lifetime is.
Bear with me, I'll get to tractors soon.
My 15 year old Suzuki 4WD has a front diff, rear diff, manual trans and a transfer case. Everything is supposed to be replaced every 60k. After replacing the front diff fluid a few times, I stopped worrying about it because the stuff was as squeaky clean as the day it went in due to the 4wd not being used much. At the opposite end of the spectrum the transfer case fluid shows the most signs of suffering, the most grit and fluid breakdown. What breaks oil down? Heat, pressure, and contaminants in varying amounts. Breakdown is the direct result of use and exposure. No one ever heard of oil going bad while waiting on the shelf.
Tractors. Almost there.
Oil has two big jobs. The first is to provide a film of lubrication between the metal surfaces in our machines, most often utilizing long hydrocarbon chains. The stronger the chains, the higher the pressure they can stand and the longer they'll last, generally speaking. If that was all they had to do, life would be simpler. Unfortunately, oils and their ilk also have to serve as a sewage system. Any contaminants created or imported into the unit end up in the oil. The operating fluid has to carry, neutralize, and barricade off this stuff to keep it from affecting expensive machine parts or breaking down the oil itself. A wide variety of additives are used in an effort to do this.
Looked at from this perspective, it seems to me that the quality of the oil is more important than the oil type, so long as that type is sanctioned by the manufacturer. I'd be happier with high grade gear oil in my front end than UDT manufactured by Frypot inc., and vice versa. As to viscosity, I observe that automatic transmissions are very reliable as a group and often go hundreds of thousands of miles, all the while being lubricated by thin automatic transmission fluid.
Tractors at last. 98% of the tractors on this forum see light or medium duty. Even with lots of neglect I reckon they'd run a very long time without any problems (engine oil excepted). Kubotas benefit from outstanding design, high grade materials, and excellent workmanship. That's why we bought'em. Doing the scheduled maintenance in the first place will have the biggest long term effect, whatever we use.
If the front end of your tractor sees a lot of use, the oil will take a harder beating because of it. If you typically run your loader so full the back end is skipping, those small front wheels and all that drives them are going to work very hard. If you don't have a loader and hardly ever use the 4wd, that front end aint workin' very hard, and neither is the oil that's in it.
Probably the only differences between gear oil, UDT and SUDT that we'd be able to detect are price, power, and fuel economy. Since we tractor nuts are fixated on power, it makes sense to use the thin stuff in order to avoid robbing our metal beasts of efficiency. I'll put a plug in for fuel efficiency, especially in cold operating conditions, thus sparing a precious resource (of course this assumes there aren't big differences in manufacturing inputs). As to price my tractor only has 4.8 hours on it, so I have no idea what the relative costs are.
All this said, it would be really nice to know what the differences are in these three lubricant families. Anyone know of a good website about them?
My 50 cent's worth. Just think, if I did this two more times I'd have spent enough for a cup of coffee.
Stackwood
