L3200 50 hour service

[Kiwibota]

My 50 hour service is due soon and looks straightforward enough except for the Kubota concept of changing the hydraulic and transmission filters without changing the fluid. There is more than 20 litres of fluid above these filters and Kubota is telling me to remove them! That makes no sense to me or am I missing something? Is there maybe a valve that shuts when the filters are loosened to prevent fluid loss (like on the fuel filter)? The dealer says just work fast! Some say create a negative pressure in the casing using a vacuum cleaner. Are all the seals designed for a negative pressure? All sounds very strange. What did you guys do and was there a big oily mess!

 

[Roadworthy]

No matter what you do you'll lose whatever fluid is in the filter and the lines nearby. Have a bucket handy. I made an adapter for my shop vac to the filler port to apply negative pressure. On my tractor that was a one inch NPT thread so a PVC fitting worked well. I don't know if the seals are designed for negative pressure but it doesn't take much to overcome one atmosphere of positive pressure. I've seen no discernible leaks so I guess the method worked. Have a gallon or so of fluid on hand to replace what you lose.

 

[imnukensc]

Catch the fluid in a clean container. Change filters and add fluid back. Have some new fluid on hand to top it off.

 

[RMS]

I plugged the vent for the hydraulic fluid (close to the fill port on my machine). This helped to reduce the amount of fluid loss.

 

[chim]

I've done that vacuum trick a few times. Twice by myself using some rags stuffed around a reducer that was slid into the fill hole. Another time I held the shop vac hose to the fill hole on my BIL's L4740. Works fine. The only negative pressure needed is probably around 1/2 pound because the fluid only has about 12" of head.

You will lose whatever fluid is inside the filter but that's not a big deal.

 

[Kiwibota]

That was my first ever question on OTT as I'm new to Kubota and new to the forum. Many thanks for the quick and useful comments. I like the NPT adapter and vacuum cleaner idea. My tractor in New Zealand is Japanese assembled and might not be NPT - I'll check. Also I don't want to apply more vacuum than necessary to support whatever the oil column height is so I'll measure that and adjust the suction with the speed control knob. At a guess it is about 10 inches of oil with a density of about 0.8 which is 8 inches water gauge. I hope my vacuum cleaner is capable of that. I'll find out with a column of water in a transparent polytube. Thanks for the ideas. Does anyone find it strange that Kubota thinks the filter is dirty enough to change, but the fluid is good for more use? The filter must be doing a great job of keeping debris out of the oil and oil life is likely determined by degradation due to sheer forces.

 

[Fordtech86]

Does anyone find it strange that Kubota thinks the filter is dirty enough to change, but the fluid is good for more use?

It’s because of wear during initial break in and debris from manufacturing.

Lost minimal amount of fluid when I changed mine, but I only have the one hydraulic filter.

 

[old and tired]

I was a moron that drained perfectly good fluid at 50 hours... watching crystal clear oil dumping into a dirty bucket. The filter is there to catch and filter out the metal shavings. Reason why it's called a filter. 50 hour old oil is perfectly fine for another 350 hours (at least in my manual).

 

[Kiwibota]

I'm making good progress here. The head of oil above the lowest part of the filter gasket is 7in and my little domestic vacuum cleaner can easily lift a 36in column of water at nearly zero air flow and can be slowed to below 3in. So I think I have total control of the suck and my plan is to undo the filter a little bit until it drips slowly and then stop the drip with slowly increasing suction as I don't want to create more vacuum than necessary just in case. My Japanese assembled tractor has a 1in BSP thread on the filler and I have made an adapter out of plastic plumbing fittings. I plan to do the job in a week or two and will report back if anyone is interested. Thanks for the help.

 

[lugbolt]

I used a fluid evacuator. Put the tube into the vent, let it suck a few minutes and then remove the filters. Lose maybe a quart; basically what's in the filters only.

 

[Kiwibota]

I used a fluid evacuator. Put the tube into the vent, let it suck a few minutes and then remove the filters. Lose maybe a quart; basically what's in the filters only.

 

[Kiwibota]

I said I would report back after I had done the job, but it has taken a long time to do so. Well, the vacuum cleaner technique was a great success and I recommend it. The vacuum cleaner was set at 200W and the suction was 500mm water gauge. I lost 750ml of fluid which was almost entirely just the contents of the two filters (suction and hst) . I didn't have to work particularly fast and had plenty of time to clean the filter flanges and I didn't even have to top up the fluid as it was still in the sight glass. Thanks for the help.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

I first started to read this as an l3200 with 50 hours, which would have put this in the 2011 to 2014 Build time, which would require it to have all the fluids filter and such dumped and replaced.
Being that your in NZ maybe they are still releasing that model as new and current there.

Now I see that your post was June 28, 2022, and don't know when you actually did finally change filters.
There is a second part of this maintenance equation that you really should change fluids and filters each year if your not putting enough hours on it to make it to the hourly scheduled time frames.
Water collect in all the fluids with condensation even in situations of non use.
I would also hope that with your low hourly use, that your keeping the fuel tank full and treating your fuel with a good biocide to avoid algae issues.

 

[Kiwibota]

I first started to read this as an l3200 with 50 hours, which would have put this in the 2011 to 2014 Build time, which would require it to have all the fluids filter and such dumped and replaced.
Being that your in NZ maybe they are still releasing that model as new and current there.

Now I see that your post was June 28, 2022, and don't know when you actually did finally change filters.
There is a second part of this maintenance equation that you really should change fluids and filters each year if your not putting enough hours on it to make it to the hourly scheduled time frames.
Water collect in all the fluids with condensation even in situations of non use.
I would also hope that with your low hourly use, that your keeping the fuel tank full and treating your fuel with a good biocide to avoid algae issues.

I first started to read this as an l3200 with 50 hours, which would have put this in the 2011 to 2014 Build time, which would require it to have all the fluids filter and such dumped and replaced.
Being that your in NZ maybe they are still releasing that model as new and current there.

Now I see that your post was June 28, 2022, and don't know when you actually did finally change filters.
There is a second part of this maintenance equation that you really should change fluids and filters each year if your not putting enough hours on it to make it to the hourly scheduled time frames.
Water collect in all the fluids with condensation even in situations of non use.
I would also hope that with your low hourly use, that your keeping the fuel tank full and treating your fuel with a good biocide to avoid algae issues.

The tractor VIN characters 10,11 and 12 are M,8 and J which a 2021 build made in Japan. The engine serial number is 7MTxxxx which is late September 2021 also made in Japan. The machine was sold in February 2022 (shipping and COVID delays). The manual calls for a Super UDT2 change at 400 hrs, 800hrs, etc, with no mention of a change based on the calendar. The HST filter is due at 50, 200, 400, etc and the suction filter at 50, 400, 800. This is also what the dealers here do. In fact, when I went to buy SUDT2 intending to do as you suggest, they talked me out of it. All very confusing.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

The tractor VIN characters 10,11 and 12 are M,8 and J which a 2021 build made in Japan. The engine serial number is 7MTxxxx which is late September 2021 also made in Japan. The machine was sold in February 2022 (shipping and COVID delays). The manual calls for a Super UDT2 change at 400 hrs, 800hrs, etc, with no mention of a change based on the calendar. The HST filter is due at 50, 200, 400, etc and the suction filter at 50, 400, 800. This is also what the dealers here do. In fact, when I went to buy SUDT2 intending to do as you suggest, they talked me out of it. All very confusing.

I have a sneaking suspicion that your L3200, is something completely different than our L3200 considering the huge time difference in release.
Kubota has been know for doing some odd things in the past.

I should have said that it's more of a preference / experience than a hard fact that you should change things if it sits too long without "normal" use hours.