Frozen tranny drain plug

[moparado]

Decided to change the tranny fluid and filter before i lug my big 'ol heavy leaf vacuum around in a couple weeks. What a PITA!
After 20 or so years of never having the tranny fluid changed, the drain plug rusted in solid. Tried penetrating oil, breaker bars, hammer drivers and a little heat - nothing would budge that @#$%*& drain plug. Would of tried my impact wrench but its broke. At some point i had thoughts of cracking the aluminum or pot metal housing.
Then i noticed what i think is a return line from the pump/filter adjacent to the drain plug. Loosened it and got most of the fluid to drain but not all for some reason.
I gave up and decided to siphon the rest out from the fill tube with a transfer pump. Three Xfer pumps later i finally got one to work and got around 6 quarts out total. Next the filter. It came out relatively easy all things considered.

Anyone else have this problem?

Another '30 min. project' that turned out to be a few hours.
-Ken

[wdeturck]

That sounds like a hydro and I don't think they have a removable drain plug. If it's a gear drive I would have taken the back cover off(this is the recommended way to drain a hydro) to drain the fluid and at the same time clean any gunk that may be in the rear end. You need a large pan to catch the fluid and if you just loosed the bolts and pry the cover at the bottom to start it to drain before you remove all the bolts. If it had hy-tran in it you will find that goop that is water that clings together which is a property of Hy-tran. You may need a new gasket for the cover. There may be Hy-tran in a gear rear end as that is what Cub Cadet recommends.

[BigBill]

Don't they say to remove the rear cover to clean and flush out the hydro's?

[moparado]

wdeturck,
its a Hydro and yep i used genuine $$ Hy-tran.

There's a 3/4" square socketed pipe plug at the front-extreme bottom of the tranny under the filter area. Its called Plug, Drain which is part# 18 in the parts diagram. Listed under the description notes, it even says to use teflon tape when re-installing it.
[Side note: the parts diagram for the Transmission-Front shows another plug complete with gasket which also looks like drain plug. My tranny doesn't have that part far as i can tell.]

Bill,
i thought about pulling the rear cover but quickly decided it was beyond the scope of my mission!

I would of just changed the filter and called it a day but a few years ago i pulled a large 1/2 ton roller with this tractor to level some rat-mole mounds including going up some steep grades. When i got done the tranny was hot and leaking fluid. Looking back, i can't figure out why i didn't use the Farmall or even my Jeep to do this.


-Ken

1872 Transmission-Rear

[BigBill]

A lot of time when i use heat to loosen a bolt or nut or plug I heat half the diameter rather than make a complete circle around the diameter, it seems to work better heating half the diameter.

[moparado]

Bill,
yep, heat (my plan-E after penetrating oil, breaker bar, impact wrench, or hammer driver) always works for rusted-bolts no doubt about it.
I typically heat all around the rusted-bolt-nut-plug. I'll give your system a try mind next time.

I've also had good luck loosening really rusted in hardware (nut 'n bolt for example) by carefully heating only the the nut with a pencil tip torch which expands it, then carefully spray freon on the bolt, shrinking it.
Sort of like the method of installing wrist pins in pistons without a press which i've used in the past. Put the wrist pins in the freezer and put the pistons in the oven.

The issue i had using enough heat to loosen that drain plug is i didn't know exactly what was behind and around that plug. I was afraid of melting an O-ring or something somewhere!

I mowed the lawn yesterday and i've got to say changing that tranny fluid/filter made a noticeable difference. It engages from stop to go with less hesitation now.
-Ken