Sealed Hydro-Gear units

Joined
May 28, 2020
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458
Location
MS
Anybody change the lube in these "sealed for life" units? They have no drain plug. The official method is to remove the units and drain them from the fill hole. Kind of a pain to do. I am thinking of using an oil extractor. Anybody tried this? How much of the were you able to remove? Factory fill on mine is 1.6 quarts.
 
Model no. is ZC-DCBB-3D5A-IFPX. Kind of hard to read all the letters with the unit in the mower. The factory recommended lube is 20W50 motor oil.
Was planning to use Castrol ZTX 20w50.
 
Looks like these are zero turn drives if my googling was correct?

If it only has a top vent port, I'm not sure a suction hose would have a clear route to the oil or most of the oil. It's worth a try if you have an oil extractor. Just replace at least what you took out and repeat.
 
I believe this should link to your manual

I would probably not use an extractor...as I don't think you will get much out. It is messy, but I would drain the gas and engine oil, then tip the machine on it's side and drain from the fill hole. Use a tube to refill, and be sure to follow the purge instructions.

I would change the oil, and drain gas for winter storage anyways, so the only "hard part" is finding a way to safely tip the machine, and keep it steady.

I suppose I need to issue a safety warning - machine is heavy, and could fall on you and kill you, small children, and pets.
 
You might have to remove the deck and battery as well as making sure there's no gas or oil in the rig if you want to tip the whole machine on it's arse-end
 
Yes I have two drives on the machine, it is a zero turn mower. Each unit has a fill plug and a vent fitting on top.
Was planning on extracting and filling thru the fill plug.
The factory manual says to remove the unit and turn it upside down to drain through the fill plug then refill and reinstall . It is not practical to turn the whole mower over to drain them.
 
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