Is there a safety hydraulic reserve for my transmission?

[Peter 315]

If you have a major hydraulic leak, you are going to smell it immediately. At least the one I had worked that way.

Or wear it.....

 

[k0ua]

Or wear it.....

Yep. Either way, it is going to be rather apparent pretty quick.

 

[MHarryE]

The hydraulic has a significant reserve. Partly needed for cooling. Largely needed as oil for implements. All equipment I have worked with says to check oil with loader down, implements down, really anything to return oil to the tractor were fluid level is checked. Raising an implement, raising the loader, all take oil so normal operation drops the level significantly. My tractor with KVT says to let sit on a level spot, shut down, and wait 10 minidress before checking. It holds something like 24 gallons. The site gauge is often empty during operation so it’s continuously variable transmission must distribute oil to a lot of high places and stay there while running. Our Farmall H (we are talking my youth) failed loader cylinder seals quite regularly. Seals easy to replace. They failed so quickly that we would usually notice when it wouldn’t lift as high from one bucket load to the next so pump was running low. Never a pump problem despite running low. At Gleaner, we began our hydro transmission design with a charge pressure light but suffered a high warning light system failure rate due to the pressure pulses of the charge pump fatiguing the switches. Discussions with supplier - system serves no use. When the pressure triggers the switch, it is not high enough to stroke the hydro yet the case has enough oil to keep it lubed until operator shuts down. Gear transmissions generally have low gears that whip enough oil to keep the transmission lubed until the operator notices something like hydraulic function problems.