I did the 50 hour service on my
L4400 last weekend. All-in-all not too bad. Several thoughts:
1) It was expensive. I used Super UDT and the total was nearly $300 for fluids and filters.
2) There is a lot of fluid to deal with, at least in the
L4400. The tranny fluid alone is nearly 11 gallons. A 5 gallon bucket will not fit underneath so I had to use a galvanized wash tub and then transfer the old stuff into the empty UDT buckets later. Very messy.
3) Access to the fill holes was difficult. The hydro/tranny fluid goes into a hole over the 3pt hitch. A cross bar with the tool box and rear remotes is very much in the way. I removed it and used a long stem funnel to get access. The narrow caliber of the long funnel made filling a little slow. The engine oil fill hole was a little better.
4) The drain holes for the front axle are in a bad position. They are at the bottom of the bevel gear housing on either side. They are easy to get to but almost impossible to get a catch basin under them. I lifted the front end with the loader and that helped. Probably should have removed the front wheels too. You also have to tilt the axle up and down to get each side empty, meaning that two catch basisns would be best. As it worked out, I did get some fluid on the ground.
The whole deal, including clean up (the hard part), probably took me two hours. I went slow since this is my first tractor. Not bad, but I'm glad its done. And glad it will be a long time before I need to do all of that again.
