Zero Turn Mower Transmission losing power? This repair could save you thousands $$$$

does your mower have a tough torque transmission that's losing power well this video might help you do a do-it-yourself repair and save lots of money but real quick hit that subscribe button in this video I'm going to show you on a z930m that's got 1300 hours on it 1370 to be exact it's losing power on the right side Hydro after it warms up so I've been out here warming it up test running it and I'm going to show you guys in a minute what it's doing I'm going to let you hear it and see it so the volume might get a little loud here in a second so after I've gotten it warmed up pretty good you'll see that the left side moves pretty good hear that sound in a barely moving all the way forward so here's a hill I'm going to try to go up straight up the hill I'm actually applying more Force to the right hand side but it just didn't have enough power to climb that Hill so I'm going to back up the hill and I'm going to show you how the tire won't even spin around my left side it'll spin easier so I had to limp this back into the shop [Music] get it into my work Bay it barely made it now in the past I've gotten lucky with units a few times just by changing the oil sometimes there's water gets in into the hydro oil sometimes the there's air that gets into the hydros just from the oil level getting so low or operating at a real steep angle and I'm just sticking this napkin down in there just to see what the color of the oil it actually looked really good and the oil level was correct so my next thing was I was going to drain the oil and notice here real quick that axle shaft seal stuff wrapped all around it you want to keep your eye on that you don't want that to leak and you're going to see why later all right so first I got this drain plug here and a drain plug here 14 millimeters I'm going to go ahead and take those out and I'm going to collect a sample of oil just so I can see if there's any metal in it get my jar here ready and I'm actually surprised at how clean the oil looks as you're going to see here in a moment I'm going to collect some in a jar just for warranty in case they want to see a sample of the oil now I'm going to remove the other side and keep in mind this oil is really hot I just pulled it in took the tire off jacked it all up but I do have the cap on the reservoir so I want it to kind of drain slowly while I collect my samples see how slow the oil is draining out of that side I'm just kind of wanting to take a good look at it and so now that I open up this cap you'll see how it starts flowing a lot faster and I'm still surprised how clean the oil looks so the next thing up I'm going to take the cap that retains the filter takes a 3 8 ratchet and I do not recommend using a power ratchet like I'm going to use just use a regular hand ratchet and usually if you're going to see some type of metal shavings or parts this is where you're going to see it so I'm going to take this cap off and there's the hydro filter right behind it I'm just carefully trying to keep the oil contained now normally this is where chunks of metal come come out and I'm surprised I'm not seeing anything but I did see a little piece of plastic there and you'll find out what that is here a little bit later now there is some metal in that filter and you can reach up take your finger there's a magnet right above that filter right here one of three magnets and a lot of times I'll just scrape out the bottom see there's more plastic in there chunks of plastic and normally what I see are chunks of metal like metal gears but I'm surprised how clean it is there's no more parts no more plastic just those two little pieces so I removed the hydro from the mower and I'll put a link down in the description of another video that I showed where how to remove these it's pretty easy and I've already cleaned this one off taken the fan off now this pulley right here and also I put this little cap on there to keep dirt and stuff getting in there but I've already used my air compressor cleaned this off really good now there is a rubber plug there's a magnet right underneath that pulley you have to take that pulley off to replace that rubber plug those will dry rot and start leaking oil as well as that input shaft seal that's right underneath that pulley but this was fine in this case I was expecting to see some Carnage when removing after removing this pan now you're going to take a 14 millimeter there's two bolts here that are in the middle they're the two longest bolts and then the rest of them are about two inches to inch and a half long there's two different sizes basically I'll show you later so just remove all the Bolts real quick once you get all the bolts removed there's a couple of different pry points and all you really need is like a little small pry bar or in this case I'm just going to use a large screwdriver flat blade screwdriver and just carefully pry it up and you don't want to take you always want to have this thing upside down otherwise gears and parts and things are going to fall out so I'm going to try to set this up where you guys can get a good view so now we're looking at the back that's where that filter was going to lift this up and much to my surprise I didn't see really anything very alarming you know we've got quite a bit of metal there on that magnet which doesn't surprise me for you know having 1300 hours on it I'm right here I'm inspecting all the gears I'm not seeing anything that's really bad now in many cases when that housing or it whether it be the pan or just the Hydro housing itself is damaged you're pretty much going to need to replace the entire hydro and that's going to cost you around two thousand dollars just for the hydro plus tax plus labor plus oil and right here I'm just carefully looking around taking pictures for warranty and really not seeing anything now real quick if you have a later model they used to have that Hub one piece I mean I mean two pieces but now it's a one piece axle shaft with that Hub so you have to pretty much remove this remove these c clips remove this gear to replace that axle shaft seal like I showed earlier so you want to keep your eye on that make sure stuff's not wrapping around all right so now I'm going to remove this this housing here it's got these three bolts and right underneath here there is a a little oil pump some oil pump gears and if you're going to do this just keep everything nice and clean and organized there's what it looks like I'm not seeing any damage here so then you got this little basically oil pump I'm going to carefully remove these two little collars now before I can take those other bolts out I need to remove these little gears and it'll feel like they're kind of stuck into place but it's just that oil and so what I like to do is get a magnet pull the little gears right up there's a little keyway that's holding or I should say turning this gear there's a little keyway in that shaft I'll show you in a moment and I'm still not seeing any damage so there's that little keyway and you'll want to take that out and notice I've already removed the bolts and right now I'm thinking I should go ahead and just remove these little plates here or shoes for the parking brake I'll take that one side out just make a note how they go which way it goes right side which side is up you have two little shims there also that go on that side and sometimes you can get this one out you might have to rotate that gear a little bit so now I've already removed this little key out of that shaft and you'll have to remove that before you can lift this housing up now this is the not so fun part because you pretty much have to remove all of this as one assembly and you don't want Parts flying all over the place so I'm going to carefully just kind of very gently pry up in different areas around because you're pretty much fighting two different shafts now you'll notice how this part right here it's kind of you can see that these little Pistons will move back so you're going to kind of flex I'm going to pull back on that area but I'm still trying to pry and I finally hit the sweet spot right here and now once I got it up you'll see the two shafts vertical shafts and I'm going to try to keep all this from flying all over the place as much as I can I just lost that disc but that's okay happy with that all right so I'm carefully expecting all the parts that I've taken off so far and on this body right here this casing you have I noticed that this valve plate there was worn the one that is vertical when it's installed so you have basically two cylinder blocks with pistons and springs ones that's vertical and one that's horizontal and one one of the valve plates looks okay the one that's horizontal and the other one that was vertical which still is in there right now the cylinder it's worn pretty good I'm going to show you guys real quick so this is the one that was horizontal cylinder block with pistons and Springs right there and I still have this the vertical one is still in there and you can see I'm looking for any debris metal I've not really seeing anything just very little bit of wear so I'm still kind of wondering where the damage is but that valve plate once I got this one out I'm going to show you guys here wipe the oil off of it see that Center ring there's some grooves in there there's a piston spring they I try to keep those in there and that spring goes right in the middle when you go to reassemble it so now I'm going to remove this swash plate here and it's bearing set it down and right there see these bearing these these are like Journal bearings for that swash plate so I'm going to pull those up inspect those you know that's not what would have caused the issue and remove that with a magnet and right there I'm going to zoom in that's that magnet that is underneath that rubber plug that's underneath that I just sucked out some of the oil so you can see it better there's the magnet that's underneath that little metal I mean rubber plug right so I felt this bearing felt pretty rough not it should be like this one this one felt really smooth no damage this is the horizontal one so that so you get basically the same thing and I'm turning this and it feels rough and now we discover where those plastic pieces in the filter were from basically the little retainer for all these little ball bearings [Music] there's that plastic piece there's that filter so that mystery is solved now the there's a new Swatch plate and it comes with these races and bearings and see how rough this one is got a couple scratches not a big deal but if you ever have to remove that what I did is took a washer and Tack welded it to there and then it just will fall right out and while that is nice and hot you can wipe it out very carefully and then you can take your New pieces now notice in this kit there's one that's real thin it takes the smaller one and it will just fall right in place especially with that um swashblate being hot and just make sure look very closely make sure it's fully seated all the way down inside of there so here's why I'm replacing these Journal bearings for that swash plate this one felt like it just had a little bit of it was just rough right there and so here's the new set that I'm going to put in there so as I go to put those back in I'm going to put make sure you got a little bit of fresh clean oil in there coat it as you're putting all this stuff back together just takes the regular High guard from John Deere so now I got this new swash plate with that bearing race and stuff installed and I just like to kind of move things around make sure everything's feeling fine there's our new bearing set to replace the broken set and I'm going to pour a little bit of oil and those and I got some oil in it now I can put the other race in place now these two parts these cylinder blocks are the same part number and see how smooth that one is now let me show you this same part number that's the John Deere now see those all those little score marks in the center and outside this one wasn't as bad let me wipe it off here it wasn't as bad but it had more score marks on the outside edges than on the inside and combination with the score marks on these valve plates that was that's what's causing the issue now these are two different part numbers so don't get them confused two different part numbers so you need to make sure you know that one that ended with the two that one goes on the vertical shaft the input shaft so just don't get those mixed up because they are designed differently so now that I have that cylinder Block in there I gotta poured a little bit of oil in there pressing them down a little bit and you see the difference between the new one and the old one and these go on you know they have a face that it's it's important to have the right face going towards the cylinder block and remember to always put put that spring down into place now what you might have to do is rotate it's very hard to let this down otherwise those Pistons are going to fall right out of that cylinder block so I'm rotating I'm pulling up the case to kind of get it almost level so I can just slip that on without everything falling all over the place and that's that's how you want to get it into place okay so that one's not very fun to do now but this is the most critical part is you got to make sure that these plates stay in the into position and what I would do is coat them with some oil and you're going to have to put this into position as well because you need this shaft to go into that case assembly there and then you have those two vertical shafts you can see kind of in the in the background there and you want to put this spring into place for this cylinder block for the the horizontal block get that into place and hold pressure on it you don't have to have that parking brake disc on there but I just find it's easier to have it on there because we're going to lower everything down into position all at once so it's probably better to take these little break shoes out of there but you're going to have to do all you're going to have that shaft that shaft all three of those shafts got to go to pretty much be lined up so now this is how you have to do it put some oil on there just to help everything stick together better plus you don't want it to be dry an initial startup so now I'm constantly applying pressure to that valve plate with that cylinder block and I'm going to have and I have that plate there that's going to be constantly trying to fall so you got to have your finger kind of holding that bottom plate and and you're going to have to just kind of line up 50 different things here and just very carefully make sure everything's not popping out of alignment just take your time be patient and it's you're going to have to kind of pull in on that vertical I mean I'm sorry on that horizontal cylinder block and once you get everything aligned this is what's critical right here that plate that valve plate that's underneath that horizontal I mean the vertical block I'm going to try to zoom in there and see it see that copper plate make sure it hasn't gotten out of alignment then also you want to make sure this bearing is behind that piece on that casing and just very carefully just make sure before you run those bolts down I just like to get them finger tight and then double check to make sure that plate is not out of alignment just like this one so now you can tighten these bolts down but I I would recommend doing that very carefully with the hand ratchet then you can put those brake shoes back in with your spacers there shims now you can I've already put the little um key in that shaft after you got it after you tighten it down you can put that key in there put your little collars back in put this gear back on it fits up with that key and once you get that outer gear on there time to put this casing back on and you're probably gonna have to kind of move that gear around a little bit to get it right into the right spot you can kind of just rotate this thing and you'll find The Sweet Spot and it'll go right down into place just be patient don't try to force anything see how it just pops right down into place once it finds the correct spot now you can put those bolts in get them all started tighten them down in a crisscross pattern all right so once you got that tightened down it's time to clean up the everything for the sealant and remember you got to go right through here clean all that up that's going to have to be sealed also put your magnets into place and these and this pan has these little grooves I like to kind of just kind of clean that out with a little screwdriver then use a wire brush and here is the sealant I recommend using it's the John Deere PM 710 XX 280 works really good and I like to put it on the pan itself and then make sure that gear is in the into place and watch How I kind of rotate the shaft and you can kind of pop it in and out of place make sure your magnets are in place and then get all your bolts nice and clean those two long ones you know just get them everything finger tight and then notice the difference here in the length like I said before one is about a quarter inch shorter than the other you can see on the pan like there's a short one and that takes a little bit longer one so just have all that just get them all started finger tight don't get into a rush and make sure that pan goes down nice and easy so there's the old parts that we replaced I got the unit put back into place and it's time to go give a good test drive get it nice and hot and we'll see what it does and go ahead I've already got it hot here and I'm gonna I've been out here running for probably 30 minutes and you can see it's got plenty of power backing up trying to back up this Sand Hill it feels really good it's not making that whining noise it's got plenty of torque now we're going to go over here and pop some wheelies here in just a moment come to a stop I don't know if you guys can see in the camera but it's coming off the ground pretty easily got plenty of torque now and I like to keep track how much time I'm putting on the unit to make sure I'm warming it up thoroughly and guys to find the parts you can find everything on deer.com I'll put a link in the description of where I showed how to use deer.com to pretty much find any part you need for these all the mowers any anything John Deere but also here's a link to where I found a cheaper kit and this also included O-rings and seals and filters so guys if you're having an issue with your hydro losing power I hope this video helped you guys out I really wasn't planning on making this video when I was shooting all that footage that was really mostly just for warranty and just to make sure I was covering all my bases but I figured this would be a good opportunity uh to show you guys how I fixed it and again you know once I got it all back together and I'll put a link down in the description of another video where I show how to do the oil change and then also where I've removed some hydros and reinstalled them it's not that big a deal in this case that repair I would say probably took about four hours total or as if you're not if you're just being really cautious and taking your time the total price I think in Parts I spent probably around 150 dollars that kid I showed you that included O-rings and seals and and the filter obviously you want to put a new filter in the system new oil get all that going again watch those other videos that I've done showing that and just real quick do me a favor hit that like button hit the Subscribe button and I want to give a special thanks to Kirby zyka Foose I hope I'm saying that right uh gave me a special thanks super thanks donation said I helped them out saved them some money and that's what I'm here to do guys I'm hoping I'm you know helping you guys out save some money to replace that Hydro it's a little over two thousand dollars retail price plus tax plus the labor of putting one in you could probably do it yourself but hopefully if you are having issues with it just go ahead and remove it inspect it and like I said before in this video a lot of times I'll see just Carnage you know just catastrophic damage where it can't be rebuilt but luckily in this case we saved the customer a couple thousand dollars easily to make just making that repair so do me a favor hit that like button hit the Subscribe button and I'll have more videos like this coming soon guys thanks for watching

Channel: Mechanical Mind

Views: 38,704

Keywords: John Deere Z930M transmisson, John Deere Ztrack transmisson, Tuff Torq Transmission losing power, Tuff Torq transmission rebuild kit, John Deere hydrostatic transmission gets weaker, Tuff Torq transmission gets weaker, Tuff Torq transmission making noise, zero turn mower transmission losing power, zero turn mower transmission stops working when hot, zero turn mower hydraulic transmisson gets weak when hot

Id: w-oo-Do9Mk4

Length: 29min 4sec (1744 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023