Man, I don't know what to think. I added the bottle of hydraulic fluid dye I had. Surprisingly it was more of a red/maroon color. I expected it to be green. Anyway, I added in the whole bottle, then drove the tractor around a bit to mix it in with the hydraulic fluid. It took a while before I saw any change, and when I did, it wasn't what I was expecting at all. What I saw through the sight glass was the colored fluid dripping down from the three holes at the top of that metal piece showing there. I had expected I was either going to see no change meaning the fluid level was not high enough to show in the window, or that the entire window would show the newly changed colored fluid, with the fluid being overfilled covering the entire window. So of course I didn't have my camera handy.
I drew in an approximation of what I saw in the window as best I could.
The color wasn't that brilliant, of course, and I am no artist, but the effect is pretty much what I saw. If the sight glass were filled with hydraulic fluid, how could this sort of effect be produced? The dyed hydraulic fluid wouldn't be thicker nor heavier than the undyed fluid, so how could this visual effect take place.
I did go to the house and get my camera, but by the time I got back, the visual effect had changed quite a bit.
The dyed fluid has dripped down that metal face, and you can still see the gold color still visible as narrow vertical streaks between that dyed fluid that seem to have dripped down over the face of the metal. Wouldn't the dye have pretty much been distributed uniformly all through the hydraulic fluid instead of dripping through those holes?
Of course, now I am wondering if that metal piece visible through the sight window has been permanently stained from the dye.
I tried using an actual engine dip stick into the hydraulic fluid fill hole, but I could feel the tip of it slide along the bottom of the reservoir pan. Not sure how to get an actual accurate reading of the fluid level in that manner.
Man I hate the thought if getting underneath the tractor and draining the fluid into containers just to see how much comes out. That is likely going to be a real messy job. Plus I am just getting to feeling too old to be crawling on my back underneath the thing to do something like that.
Anyone know how much hydraulic fluid is in the T474 when it is delivered to the dealer from TYM? I imagine they don't fill up the reservoir and have the dealer do that upon delivery.