Ford 3000 PTO shaft seal

[mx842]

I thought I was about done with this tractor I've been working on but yesterday before I loaded it up to take it back to the club house I remembered that I still needed to check the fluid levels in the transmission and Rear of the tractor. I removed the check plug for the transmission and out poured this white looking fluid from the hole. This usually means water has gotten in there somehow. I don't know of any oils that are this color so something has happened for sure. I looked inside of the fill hole and everything looks ok, I mean I don't see any rusting going on and the gears I can see show very little if any wear.
I went to check the rear end and that plug will not budge. I put everything I had on the plug and all that was happening is the wrench was flexing from the torque. I might try a little heat to see if that will help. That's not the worst thing when I removed the fill plug I could see no oil at all and I could see a couple gears that have pretty good wear marks on them. Everything still works ok and I've never heard any noise coming from that area. There are a couple leaks under the gear case and a lot coming from around the PTO shaft. I'm thinking I'll try to put a new PTO seal in just to get a feel for what else may come up.
I'm pretty sure the reason for this leak is that the universal joint where it goes into the gearbox on this bush hog went bad and they kept running it until it through the whole shaft out into the field. Also, the way someone had the bush hog set up was way off to where when you tried to level it the shaft would grind on the top of the deck right at the front. This is probably what caused the joint to fail as well as the seal at the PTO shaft.
I haven't dug into this yet but am wondering what is involved in changing out this seal. The service manual I got off the site is worthless as nip nips on a bore hog when it comes to using it to try and fix something.

 

[sotxbill]

Not hard to change... you can park the tractor with the front down hill to avoid loosing fluid,, or not. you need to turn on the pto so that the coupling is partially on the front shaft and will not fall off into the bottom... then pull 4 bolts, and pull pto and bearing housing out of tractor, caareful to not damage the gasket... Remove the c clip in the bearing housing, and tap off the housing, remove bearing and then replace seal... reverse to install... check housing for damage, especially the groove for the c-clip... if this groove is damaged you will need another bearing housing. Change the pipe plug on the side to a new one and DONT over tighten.

 

[mx842]

(quoted from post at 06:56:40 10/04/23) Not hard to change... you can park the tractor with the front down hill to avoid loosing fluid,, or not. you need to turn on the pto so that the coupling is partially on the front shaft and will not fall off into the bottom... then pull 4 bolts, and pull pto and bearing housing out of tractor, caareful to not damage the gasket... Remove the c clip in the bearing housing, and tap off the housing, remove bearing and then replace seal... reverse to install... check housing for damage, especially the groove for the c-clip... if this groove is damaged you will need another bearing housing. Change the pipe plug on the side to a new one and DONT over tighten.

Thanks, I've been looking everywhere for some kind of a parts breakdown and finally found one from a link someone posted here. Thanks for the tip about turning on the PTO thingy, I don't need any more problems than I already have. :wink: I have the feeling that the gasket is already toast because I think it's been off before. I just ordered a seal off of Amazon and hopefully it the right one. The closest dealer is over 70 miles from me so I didn't want to make that trip if not needed.
As far as that plug I'm afraid that it's in there cross threaded because it won't move. It's in a bad place where you have a hard time getting to it to get a really good pull on it. To make matters worse the head is pretty well rounded off. I'm going to try a little heat and see if I can get a good pair of vice grips in there to maybe get a better hold on it. I can get a fairly decent hold on it with a wrench but once you really get down on it, I can feel it rounding off more.

 

[Tom in Mo.]

I don't know what manual you got off this site but it should look something like this. I've had great info out of this manual.

 

[Tom in Mo.]

Also, try welding a nut on the end of the plug which will also deliver heat.

 

[mx842]

That was my next go to but I got it out yesterday. I put some heat on it and used a big adjustable wrench that had enough beef to do the job. I think someone had put a metric plug in there and tightened the pure living heck out of it. I didn't have the time to put a thread checker on it but I'm sure that is the problem. I'll get a new one today.

 

[mx842]

Yep, that looks like the one. It probably fine if you have been working on tractors for 25 years or so. To me it leaves a lot to your imagination and it's a little hard to follow. I'm used to working out of Mercury outboard and Mercuriser manuals which are user friendly and go into a little more detail but, I guess any manual will be a little easier to use if you are familiar with what you are working on to begin with. I've worked on heavy equipment, boat engines, Racing dirt bikes, and a few other things in my lifetime but never too many farm tractors. I once had 3 ford 3000's and a couple 2600's but I never had to work on them much they just never broke down.

 

[mx842]

Yesterday I ran a long piece of wire down into the fill hole at the rear to check to see just how much oil was in there. The best I could tell was there was right at 4" on the bottom. It looks to me like just by sighting a line across from the oil level plug the oil should come up to about where the axle housing comes out of the main housing. If that's the case, it's well over halfway from where it should be. I haven't drained the oil yet because I would like to wait until get the seal. And yes, the seal is bad because I cleaned out that area yesterday and can plainly see oil seeping out at the seal lips.
Another thing I'm wondering if there is any way for the oil to transfer from one housing to the other. I'm just asking because I'm wondering if that could be the reason the transmission side was over filled. I don't see how water could have gotten in there but the fill plug on the rear has a little hole in it that water could have entered. I ordered one of those too.

 

[steveo3000]

(quoted from post at 11:42:20 10/05/23)
Another thing I'm wondering if there is any way for the oil to transfer from one housing to the other. I'm just asking because I'm wondering if that could be the reason the transmission side was over filled. I don't see how water could have gotten in there but the fill plug on the rear has a little hole in it that water could have entered. I ordered one of those too.

Good way to get water in the transmission sump is leave it outside for rain to get past the shift boots. Did it, won t do it again

 

[mx842]

Dang, I didn't think about that. I'll take a look see today to see what kind of shape they are in. It sits under a metal roof most of the time but in the past month or so while I've been working on it here it's been sitting outside, and we have had a couple good rainy spells since then. Having said that I've had a couple tractors that spent pretty much all their lives outside without that happening, but I guess anything is possible.

 

[mx842]

(quoted from post at 06:56:40 10/04/23) Not hard to change... you can park the tractor with the front down hill to avoid loosing fluid,, or not. you need to turn on the pto so that the coupling is partially on the front shaft and will not fall off into the bottom... then pull 4 bolts, and pull pto and bearing housing out of tractor, caareful to not damage the gasket... Remove the c clip in the bearing housing, and tap off the housing, remove bearing and then replace seal... reverse to install... check housing for damage, especially the groove for the c-clip... if this groove is damaged you will need another bearing housing. Change the pipe plug on the side to a new one and DONT over tighten.

I finally got my seal, but I need to clarify the part about this coupling that might fall off and go into the bottom of the case. I've looked at several u-tube vids and nobody seemed to be worried about that part. They just pulled the whole housing along with the PTO shaft out. I'm not saying what you said is wrong I just don't want to make things worse for me because I have all the trouble I need right now.

 

[mx842]

Well, I went out and took a chance to see what would happen. I pulled the PTO lever to the rear then checked the shaft to be sure it was locked in. I removed the 4 bolts and to my surprise the whole thing came out. It came out to just where the housing was about to clear then it stopped and would not go any further. I pushed it back in and when I did the shift lever disengaged to where the shaft would turn freely. I pulled it back again and tied it off with a bungee cord and tried again. This time it did the same thing, it would come out about 4 inches and again stopped. I yanked on it a couple times and it sounds like it's hitting something pretty solid. I didn't go any further for fear of messing something up. The ones I looked at on u-tube all seemed pretty tight to get out but this one slides easily up to the point it stops. Any ideas, please I have to get this thing away from here and taking it away un fixed is not an option.