Rear Finish Mower Rhino FM 72A finishing mower

[rmissildine]

Hello all, looking for some help with my Rhino finishing mower. Hopefully someone has run into this problem before me.
Last week I was mowing our 8 acre horse pasture. As it got hotter during the day, I noticed oil coming from the breather cap on top of the gearbox. I took a break and decided to check things out. I pulled the fill plug and breather / dip stick. It appeared to have water in the gearbox oil, all milky brown and I could see water droplets on the dip stick. I only had a bit more to cut, so I cleaned the breather and finished cutting.
When I got it back to the shed I began looking for a drain plug of some kind on the gear box but couldn't find one!!! I have the parts manual but it doesn't show any such plug on the gear box. So, how do I get this gearbox drained, cleaned and refilled???
I've owned this mower for 5 years and have never had this problem. I got it from the original owner but he didn't have the owners manual just the parts manual. All the online articles make no mention of how to drain the oil.
Can anyone help me? I don't want to disassemble the entire mower just to clean and change the oil in the gearbox, but I'll do what I have to.
If you need pictures I can post some.

Thanks,
Roger

 

[lman]

I've got a mower similar to that and replaced some seals in the gearbox a few years ago. I wound up just removing the gearbox and dumping it upside down to remove the oil.

 

[rmissildine]

I've got a mower similar to that and replaced some seals in the gearbox a few years ago. I wound up just removing the gearbox and dumping it upside down to remove the oil.

Iman, That's the answer I was afraid of. While I have all the tools, disconnecting the belts, unbolting both platforms just to get it off is a task I'm not looking forward to. But as I said, I'll do what I gotta do... Can't afford to bugger up a gear box.
Speaking of seals, that's the strange part. None of my seals are leaking so I don't know how moisture got in there...

Thanks again,
Roger

 

[Blue14]

Would it be possible to get a hose from an oil suction gun down the fill plug hole and suction the old gear oil out?

 

[rmissildine]

Hey Blue,
I thought of that as I have one but the hose is too big to go into either hole. So yesterday, I pulled the gear box, dumped the old oil in a 5 gal bucket, filled it back up with diesel and spun it around by hand to flush it out. Drained that and filled it back up with 85w/140 gear oil. All back together now and ready for mowing this weekend.

Thanks for the reply.
Roger