. . . So what caused the manifold and pump to go bad? My 09 M has about the same hours as yours, but no problems yet just work done and enjoyment doing it.
Tom, From what I can understand, the manifold on some of these tractors is bad. Just a bad casting. The manifold is cast aluminum. All it takes is a pin-hole. The pump is mounted up high on the transmission case, so it's above the fluid level. If the casting is bad, the fluid leaks from the pump and back into the transmission. Then, when you start it back up, the pump is running dry. As the pump begins to wear, it takes longer each time for it to regain its prime. The longer it runs dry, the more it wears. Not good, to say the least.
Again, from what I've learned, if you haven't had a problem yet, chances are you won't. Realize that this happens to just a very few of these tractors, literally a small fraction. The service manager said that mine was the ONLY 5M that he knows of with this problem. I didn't realize that I had trouble until it had almost 400 hours on it, and it was just out of warranty (of course). Of the few that have responded with similar problems, most seem to occur much sooner.
The folks on this forum are great. Thanks to
AKfish and
jd110, I was able to give my service manager the John Deere service solution number. (like an automotive TSB) It made his job a lot easier, and probably encouraged the JD factory rep to go ahead and authorize the repair.
