165 steering gear- how do you drain it?

Don-Wi

Well-known Member
I need to drain the fluid out of the steering gear on our 165 because it's got some water in it that freezes and then it won't steer. After looking at the parts manual, I only see a fill plug for it. How on earth does a guy drain it? Pull the whole side cover off?

Probably wouldn't hurt to do it because then I could get all of the ice out and make sure it was out before filling it with oil again, but seems to be more work than it should be. Anybody changed the oil in that box before?

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
I figured it out- may not be the correct way but it worked. I took out 1 bolt and it started to drip, so I loosened 3 more that I could get to and then after letting it drip for a while I turned the steering wheel, which in turn pushed the cover open some. Must have gotten a good pint of rain water out, and then some nice thick black sludge that used to be 80-90.

I filled it back up and got that job taken care of. Now the next job I"ve gotta work on is the charging system so we can run with the headlights on. Hopefully next Friday I can work on that job. Then get the weather break on for the season.

Donovan from Wisconin
 
I did mine like this. I found some of the nastiest black goo in there you never want to see. I had to dig the stuff out with a scraper and screwdriver. Then flushed it with carb cleaner. It has a heavy gear lube in there now (BB). Not exactly corn head grease, but close.

Aaron
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Probably should have done it that way, but ith all the stuff that was in the way and the time restrictions I was on, I'll live with this. When I filled it back up it took 1 1/2 pints, so that's pretty good. Could've gotten more sludge out, but I was happy enough with the water being out. Was warm enough that there wasn't any ice.

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
I did this one afternoon, and the next morning we had several inches of snow that stayed on for weeks. Glad I got to it when I did. The moving parts clearanced themselves from the goo so oddly there was decent oil on the mechanism. I am sure yours is fine. How the water got in there is a good question.

Aaron
 
My guess would be rain water that gets trapped under the rubber center peice in the steering wheel. Or just whatever follows the steering shaft down. The 165 used to stay in the shed for many years (had it close to 20 years now) but then for a while it sat outside year round. That's when we started noticing problems. Now it gets parked behind the barn in the lean again so it should be good for a number of years.

Donovan from Wisconsin
 

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