Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Old time tractor question

Have a Ferguson TO35 1959 model checked the trans fluid and it’s milky water in it.What is the best to put back in it I’ve googled everything from 10/30 to 90wt but read it needs to be mineral because of bronze bearings.I know I need to replace the shifter boots but want to do it right the first time and be in the clear.

Enough heat will boil it out.

Vintage tractors can be picky about what’s best for transmission/hydraulic fluid. My 8N used straight 80 weight mineral oil. The normal transmission fluid you see everywhere won’t work. A five gallon bucket of mineral oil cost $100 at NAPA. Your tractor, being of the same vintage, might have a very specific fluid type….

Milky means water got in it, probably outside in the rain. It needs to be drained and replaced.

8 gallons capacity I want to know the correct type the manual doesn’t spec

I bush hogged a bit with it a week or so ago noticed it was getting hot around my feet checked the fluids

GL1 90.
GL1 is a mineral oil.

People have also used `15-40 dino oil and seem to have no problems but I'd stick with what the manual says to use.

It's just called Tractor transmission/hydraulic fluid (it's both) you can buy it at any farm or parts store. I think I remember a filter under a plate on the left side.

Premium Universal from Tractor Supply.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/traveller-premium-tractor-hydraulic-fluid-2-gal-t806383

You need to get the water contamination out first. Not easy.

Yeah

Just me
I'd much rather drain sh*tty contaminated fluid
and/or fuel and replace with relatively inexpensive
clean new stuff than have the expense of possibly
having to replace rust pitted bearings and/or
galled shafts and seals or maybe an expensive
housing of some kind from moisture in a
fluid. I've always thought that was way easier
and cheaper

exactly my thoughts and wonders

Hydro /trans

Might be easier to get a hose all the way to the bottom and start filling... hopefully the water and gunk is pushed up and out. Who cares if you waste a few gallons of oil.

Weight? No idea.

I bought this stuff from Walmart for my truck pumpkins... I like it.



Good luck to you Sir!

Be careful what you ask for at the supply house.

Newer (late 1960s-1970s era)International Hydro tractors use "Hy-Tran" for the Hydro transmission and hydraulics system. It is similar to Dexron auto transmission fluid and is a far different animal than the 80-90 weight gear lube you need for that old TO-35.

For the last 60 years we have kept the gear boxes of the old Fergusons and Fords in the extended family full of the same old stinky Sulfer smelling 80-90 weight that we used in the differentials of the pickups and trucks.

That would be nine Ford 8N tractors, one of which sits outside right now, and five still at my Uncles house. A TO 20, a Ferguson 35, a Ford 800, a Ferguson 135, and a Ferguson 40. I never heard mention of "Mineral oil".

Off topic, but is your Ferguson one of those that uses a gate in the
shift pattern to run the starter?

An old man I helped had two like that.
Thought they were Ford's at first, they said "Grab that tractor and
back it over here to the baler."

Then they had a good time when I couldn't start the damn thing.

There is no internal or external filter on the TO 35 and it takes the 80-90 WT gear oil. Drain it all out from the plug at the bottom of the rear case and refill it at the plug at the top of the transmission. The transmission compartment fills first then flows into the rear differential area. Check the fluid level with the dipstick on the right (brake pedal) side.

I remember the Fergusons that had that starter switch configuration. The Ford 8N had a dimmer like push button near the shifter. It could not be depressed unless the tractor wan in neutral.

But the 35 I was familiar with had the start button on the dash.

I got the better version