Wintertime hydraulics not working and related maintenance question

[The Evil Twin]

Let some drain into a Mason jar and take it inside. Curious to see what it looks like at room temperature.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

I think I would cover it with an electric blanket and layers of visqueen.

That's going to take one heck of a big blanket , and yea it will probably thaw it out come march.

It really takes a lot of heat to make up for no insulation.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

I think I may have posted earlier, use a chicken (IR) lamp pointed at the HST case. It heats the CASE, not the air and there's a LOT of internals that need to get well above 40 to get the watery oil to flow. Seriously you could have ice dams ( blockages ) , so lower 'oil' melts a bit, flows out, but NOT stuff up higher. You'll be very lucky IF after a week of 40F temp ,most has drained out. If it gets cold(32) at night, it all freezes again.....arrrrrghhhhhhhh

 

[Hman0217]

Well folks, time for an update. I let this thing drain for 13 days. Only about four of those days were enough above freezing to really equal metal water draining out of the tractor. The place where the tractor seized up earlier - in a driveway next to our tenants parking spot - made the visqueen/heat treatment not feasible. So I was stuck relying on mother nature a bit.

Well I filled her back up and - thank my lucky stars - she runs like a champ.

So now...how many hours or to what extent should I run her on this cheapo fluid before I drain again? And hour or so fine?

Also ... I've had the backhoe off but it's definitely been attached during this water phase. How much oil does the backhoe hold? How imperative is it that I reconnect the backhoe and cycle oil through it before I drain again? I imagine I should, yes?

Finally - and I'm embarrassed by this but I think I owe it to the thread. Here's attached a picture of all the ice that was left over after I poured the old oil into a discard pail? That's just about an inch deep of ice crystals

Im glad she's running but I sure hope I didn't just shave substantial life off from this folly

Edit: we did have a little precipitation during the past two weeks so some of that water was not in the tractor but I do believe a substantial amount was.

 

[Hman0217]

I think I may have posted earlier, use a chicken (IR) lamp pointed at the HST case. It heats the CASE, not the air and there's a LOT of internals that need to get well above 40 to get the watery oil to flow. Seriously you could have ice dams ( blockages ) , so lower 'oil' melts a bit, flows out, but NOT stuff up higher. You'll be very lucky IF after a week of 40F temp ,most has drained out. If it gets cold(32) at night, it all freezes again.....arrrrrghhhhhhhh

Truth be told I missed your post before I just refilled it. But I'm committed to cycling it back out again anyway and not running it while below 32 until I'm on the other side of this

I like the chicken lamp idea.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Do you have good fluid or cheap fluid in it now?

 

[Hman0217]

Do you have good fluid or cheap fluid in it now?

Cheap
Not garbage but not Udt2. It's the travelers premium they sell at tractor supply

I'd like to wait until it's well into the 40s for the next drain but I just don't know whether running it at all in the meantime would be a good idea

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Cheap
Not garbage but not Udt2. It's the travelers premium they sell at tractor supply

I'd like to wait until it's well into the 40s for the next drain but I just don't know whether running it at all in the meantime would be a good idea

You can run it with that till it warms up.