1010 diesel hydraulic to transmission leak?

[newwood]

I have a 1010 diesel with 6 way blade that runs great, hydraulics seem to work fine, but that is losing hydraulic fluid -- which seems to be showing up in the transmission. I keep having to add 40W to the hydraulic, and when I checked the transmission level recently found that it's wildly overfull, with something that looks remarkably fresh and a lot thinner than the 80W that's supposed to be in there. I added close to 2 gal one day, but it was down by almost 2q the next day just sitting there without running.

Very mysterious to me, since I see no obvious big leaks and wasn't aware the two systems were connected (but I admit, when it comes to this crawler, there's a lot I don't know...).

So, could hydraulic oil be draining into the transmission, and what would be the most likely place for a leak? (Sadly, it's 1000 miles away at the moment, so no immediate inspections available at the moment, I'm just trying to figure a plan of attack).

Thanks

[gregjo1948]

Are you sure you're adding the oil in the correct location? The hydraulic oil may be leaking only when it's running. It may have gone down while sitting because, after filling, it takes a little time to "settle".

[newwood]

Yup, I'm definitely putting the hydraulic oil into the right place. But my comment that it happened in a day "without running" was a little misleading: I did fire it up and let it run for 20 minutes to recharge the battery, but didn't take it out of its shed to do any work with it. The loss is a lot more than "settling" and this isn't the first time I've had to add a lot of oil to the hydraulics. Although it gets started up and run every couple months to keep the battery up (and run in and out of the shed to move things around), it hasn't gotten more use than that in the past 4 years (so maybe 5 hrs of run time), during which it went through the initial 2 gal, followed by the most recent 1-2 q after the single 20 minute run. And the fact that oil is mysteriously appearing in the transmission (a couple of inches above the full hash on the transmission dipstick, so more than a gallon)

I've been staring at the exploded parts diagrams but don't have the service book. Maybe a seal between the hydraulic pump and the transmission/differential is leaking?

[Lavoy]

Hyd pump is on the front of the engine, no connection to trans at all.
Lavoy

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

The 1010 hydraulics are a separate system with its' own sump, lines and pump. It is not like the newer machines where they common-sump the hydraulics with the trans and final drives.

There is no way I can think of for hyd oil to get into the trans on a 1010....

Stan

[newwood]

Ah. Two independent systems. Rats. I was hoping for a single cause for both problems. You have to admit that it's appealing to try to link the falling levels in one system with the rising levels in another.

So how about the reverser? I've been looking at prior posts about hydraulic reversers, and at least it's in the vicinity of the transmission eh?

The mystery continues.

[gregjo1948]

How's the engine oil level?

[newwood]

Oil level in engine seems OK. It was down 1.5q, which I refilled, but not nearly enough to explain the increase in the differential, and it wasn't overfull so that doesn't explain where the hydraulic oil is going.