Excavator KX71-3 Oil Leak

[diggingfun]

Hello all, any advice for my issue would greatly be appreciated. I have a 2017 KX71-3 Super Series with a V1505 engine. I have a pretty significant oil leak I am having trouble tracking down. It seems to be somewhere between the oil sending unit and the alternator. At first I thought it was the oil sending unit, but after swapping it out, the machine is still leaking oil. It is about impossible to see/feel on that side of the engine, even with my camera/scope.
I found a plastic push plug laying at the bottom of the trailer ramps last time I unloaded the machine. The nipple part of the plug is approx 1/2in. It is a hard plastic plug that had oil residue on it. Is this my oil leak issue? If so where does this plug go? Or is there something else I need to be looking at?
I looked through the shop manual, searched the net, and cannot come up with anything.

EDIT: I've just figured out what the plastic plug is. It is an oil gauge plug. I think I can safely assume that this is my oil leak. Now, I have to figure out where it goes and figure out why it came out.

 

[Russell King]

See if you can locate it in the illustrated parts list

Kubota Tractor Corporation - Illustrated Parts List

- K-PAD - Parts Lists - Illustrated Parts Lists - diagrams

apps.kubotausa.com

oil sending unit is under the engine crankcase section

 

[diggingfun]

PROBLEM SOLVED. This morning I looked with a mirror and a light and found the spot for the plug. The plug is inserted downward toward the ground and not into the side of anything. It was an absolute stroke of luck that I found that plug laying at the bottom of the trailer ramps, if not I would've never guessed that a missing plastic plug was my problem.

So if you have a KX71-3 excavator and find that you have a fairly serious oil leak on the side of the engine toward the seat, your plastic plug may have come out. Since this leak was so close to the oil sending unit, I incorrectly assumed that it had to be that because I didn't see anything else in that area of the engine that could leak oil. The oil was coming out and shooting straight up and hitting the bottom of the alternator.

I put the old one back in and ran the machine for about 5 hrs today without any issue. But I will be ordering a new plastic plug and putting it in as soon as I get it. In fact, I will order 2 of them to have one on hand in addition to another oil sending unit for when the current one fails.

Hope this post helps someone in the future. I was coming up empty handed when searching the internet for this issue.