850-Cold wearther and tractor hydraulics ?

[Billy NY]

Seems that these hundred series and the tractor hydraulics are a common thread on this board and there is quite a few posts to read going back relative to issues with same.

I was wondering, what might make the cold weather adversely effect the tractor hydraulics, and make the lift take 30 minutes or so of warming up before it works ? It does not do this when warm outside.

Likely a related problem to other posts about hydraulic repairs or were they like that from new?

On this particular one, I don't really need the lift in the winter, I put my weight on and leave it, arms rest on a bar that spans a backhoe mount, and she goes in the heated garage which makes it so much easier to start (LP power) etc., but recently I've had some plowing to do and she really is slow to even lift, warm it up shut it off and sometimes it lifts right up. It will lift that heavy weight no trouble and I have looked inside at the piston checking for leaks did not see any, but I don't recall if I did that with weight on, maybe it won't leak unless you put a load on it ?

Now I recently changed all the fluids, did the pto seal thing, just rebuilt the existing one in there, and thought I concluded that the seal between the hydraulic and differential did not leak. I topped er off, hyd., thought the fluid level was right, all cylinders raised, seems the first time after running some hours on it, was down a little, I topped it off again, right on the arrow, a tad low, not long ago, seems nothing on the dipstick, was on level ground, would not lift, but eventually did even with nothing on the stick, I then topped it off again. This one does settle down after the tractor is off too.

I'm thinking maybe that seal does leak, but if its that much, seems with any run time I'll have to switch over to hydraulic in the rear, drain off excess and refill the hydraulic, like fairly often, does not seem feasible to run like this, meaning I'm in for a split which is not a bad thing for this tractor, just real inconvenient, being its the only one here.

It sounds typical for one of these, need to read over the old posts on this and follow up with same, make any sense ? , appears to be a common problem with these once they get a lot of hours like this one has.
 

[JMOR]

[Billy NY]

2nd part makes sense, when I switch over from the 2 bottom to the counterweight, I'll take off the filler cap and see again, just cannot recall if I did it with weight on, which is a heavy cast iron, alleged ford aircraft tug weight, has to be well over 500 lbs but under 1000lbs, hard to estimate what it weighs, heres a photo well no photo what the heck happened to photobucket, can't copy the link, they changed the page oh well