cleaning sludge in transmission

Myself, I took off the transmission cover, hydraulic lift top cover and removed the pump and PTO shaft. All drain plugs were out. The sludge in mine was the consistency and color of peanut butter. I used a steam cleaner, a pressure washer and a solvent gun in that order. The pressure washer was the most effective. One location you will not have much luck with in the rear axle trumpets. I tilted first one side then the other to allow the liquid to flow out. To my advantage, I was replacing the axle seals on one side so I had a straight shot into the trumpet on that side.

After the steam and pressure washer there was a little flash rust in some locations, but for the most part, the metal is saturated with oil molecules and rusting was not a problem for the short time it was without oil on the moving parts.

While in there, I replaced the lift cylinder, and a new NAA piston and ‘O’ ring and leather gasket. I also installed a new relief valve on the pump. With clean new oil, the pump was quite and the lift arms stayed up all night!

Good luck.

Well, you might think these are barnyard photos, but this is only some of what we dug out of the diff, pump, xmission cavities. The lift actually worked before we cleaned, although after seeing this, we wished we had not run it first. It isn't that hard to drop the pump out the bottom after the PTO shaft is out & the side cover off will then give you 3 holes to work & see through. You can grab, scrape, wipe what you can & then use pump up garden sprayer to really wash the inside down with diesel. 3 more posts to see all the pics. Have fun playing in the 'stuff'.

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next (gotta wipe hands somewhere!)

Then, on the advice of a mechanic I drained all the oil from all the sumps, closed it back up and then poured five gallons of clean diesel in there. Cranked her up and let her run about five minutes, and then drained all the diesel. I still had to mop it out good like Dan did, but it came clean.

First, some say it is very bad to run straight diesel, even for a short time. Absolutely no lubricating qualities in diesel, and it is very hard on the hydraulic pump!

Second, don't clean it up halfway. I did a minimal clean out when I had the PTO shaft out. It was really hard to get my hand in there, and I didn't have a sprayer. Anyway, the result was my lift got erratic for a while. I think I stirred up junk in the bottom of the sump, and it was sticking in the valves!

I've also read that the only way to get it really clean is to remove the hydraulic pump. Sounds like Dan's method will work, though, with a lot of persistance and disregard for the skin on your hands:-) If you have a gullible child with small hands around, maybe you can get them to help:-)

Good luck!

Joe

And by the way, you will soon discover the inside edge of the PTO opening is rough, and you easily loose skin around the very top joint of your thumb and the side of your hand by your pinky finger as you pull your hand back out. Be gentle early on - you have to go back in there frequently and it REALLY smarts once the skin is gone... I still have a patch by my thumb that is off colored from this - it may never blend in with the sorounding skin color.

Also, if the differential chamber is bad, I'll bet your hydraulic chamber and transmission chamber and just as bad.

HTH,
Dan