ford 881 sos info

just picked up a 1960 881 with a sos trans . i need to change the transmission oil. i can not find a drain plug or a filter. pulled the round cover off left side.were can i find the suction screen? any web sites i can go to. thanks

There is not a regular drain plug on the SOS. If you look at the bottom left side of the tranny under the inching pedal you will see a round shaft with a drilled and tapped hole in the middle of it and has a flat strap to hold it in place by one bolt. That is the drain and pickup screen in one piece. Remove the bolt and strap and screw a bolt into the hole and hopefully it will pull out, don't pull it out too far or you will have a mess. Just pull it out till the oring is exposed and then turn it so the drain hole in the side is down till the oil is done draining and then you can pull it all the way out to clean the screen. The oil fill is on the right side and is a regular pipe plug, 3/8" I believe. The internal oil filter is no longer made and there is no replacement at this time, however one of the other members here is tying to get a batch made but haven't heard lately how that is coming. The biggest thing I can tell you is don't mess with this tranny till you get a good service manual that covers the SOS tranny in these tractors. It doesn't take much to mess them up and it can get real expensive to fix fast if you don't do something right when you take it apart. That said I have a tractor with the 1st generation SOS (971) and one with the 2nd generation SOS (63 4000) and a 5000 with a SOS in it and I love those SOS's but they can be problem if not taken proper care of. Sorry for long post but I can't stress the need for a good book enough when working on these trannys. My 2 cents worth Greg NE

As another new owner of an 881 I have been watching for an answer to kwrules question, so I thank you Greg NE for your input! It raises another question for me though. What do you consider a "good service manual"?
Thanks,
Lynn

I have both the I T and a reprint of the Ford service manuals and the Ford book is at least 3 times bigger, goes into greater detail and covers the same tractors. The I T book is good for some of the simpler jobs but if I'm going to work on something complicated I will always grab the Ford book. In my opinion the Ford book is the best. Greg NE

Thanks Greg NE! Hate to bother you more, but can you get me numbers of those manuals? I found 3 right away on line, w/72, 84, & 92 pages! All claimed as Ford Service Manuals! Also, will one for the 1000 series work for the 100 series?
Thanks for the help!

I'm about 900 miles from my books right now, visiting family in Texas for the holidays, so I don't know the #'s. I do remember getting the I T book from TSC and the Ford book through my dealer and they both cover the 55 thru 64 tractors and the ford book has a supplement for the direct drive clutch SOS's in the front of it. I have seen the Ford book on ebay from time to time. I also don't remember off the top of my head on how many pages the Ford book has in it but I think it is well over a hundred pages or so. sorry Greg NE

An 881 would have come from the factory with the earlier ORC transmission, but lots of them were replaced with the later DDC trans after they came out, so your 881 might have either. Make sure that you know which version of the transmission your tractor has and then make sure that you are using a service manual (and proper section thereof) that covers that particular transmission.

I know this has been covered before, but what are the most visible clues as to which tranny it is?

(quoted from post at 19:58:56 12/22/14) I know this has been covered before, but what are the most visible clues as to which tranny it is?

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the best indicator is the cast in number but I don,t have that right here. Two other differences are ; the early has no drain plug on the bottom the later does; second the cover on the early is rounded uniformly all the way across. The later slopes off to the right from about 3/4 of the way from L to R.

Generally, 312259 is cast onto the left side of the ORC (red) transmission above and aft of the inching pedal. C0NN-7006-B or C3NN-7006-B is cast at the same location on the DDC (blue) transmission.

I have seen an exception to this rule where a blue transmission was in a case with the red casting number, however.

Thanks for all the info. I didn't mean to steal the thread!
Just went out & looked at the tractor & from all your indicators I have the early tranny. Now to find the books!
Thanks again & Merry Christmas!!