MF35 Z134 oil filter

I'm older than my MF35 Tom, and one of the things I've learned in my years is that many problems that seemingly have only one solution often have many practical and completely adequate solutions. Some situations call for a solution strictly by the book, and some don't. Some people can distinguish between the two situations, and some can't. Some folks just plain know when something will work, and others have repeated difficulty with the simplest of things. That's just the way it is. I guess it's obvious where we both fit into the scheme of things.

One poster very correctly said it's my tractor and I can do with it as I please. I respect his opinions and apparently he respects mine even though he may not agree with them. That's the way it's supposed to be just in case you don't know that.

Offer still stands to help extract your head, and once we get it out of there maybe we'll see if we can get it out of that little box it's in.

There's a small gasket between the bolt head & the opening at the top of the cannister.

Inside the canister, with the bolt inserted, starting at the opening in the top, is a spring followed by a steel washer-like disc, followed by the filter, which I believe has rubber o-rings at the top and bottom openings. Purpose of the spring/disc is to force the filter against the block thereby causing/maintaining a seal between the base of the filter and the block & a similar seal between the top of the filter and the disk.

My Agco dealer tells me it's pretty common for the spring/disc to be missing, but that no filtration happens without it. Mine had the spring but no disc. The disc isn't available through AGCO (Again, according to my dealer), they regularly use a certain sized washer as a replacement.

I'm sorry but I don't remember the washer size. I think you'd be fine picking one that fits relatively tightly around the bolt and has a large enough outside diameter to cover the filter's top o-ring.

How strong should the spring be? You can probably guess where I'm headed with this. Anyone have any technical info on the $9 spring? I'm figuring that for a little over $2 (spring, 2 rubber washer gaskets, and a steel washer) I can get the filter assembled close enough. Thoughts anyone?

I just got this tractor a few months ago, and while talking to the former owner this past weekend he told me that he never changed the filter in over 16 years that he owned it. Yikes!!! He did change oil but never the filter. That's over 16 years with no spring at all with apparently no ill effect to the motor. So maybe this helps to explain why I think any spring that will hold the filter firmly against the block will be adequate and will be an improvement over what the tractor has had for the past 16 years, and if it's $7 cheaper than the MF spring then that's even better.

I can see marks left on the bolt by the original spring. Based on the marks the spring appears to be a fairly lightweight spring which with filter installed is at almost full compression ... roughly 20 coils per inch when compressed. Can anyone shed any light on this? Surely someone has compressed that spring between their thumb and finger.

As best I can tell the oil systems in these tractors are bypass systems versus full flow. So in answer to question of whether a properly fitted filter will increase pressure on this tractor .... only slightly at best. BTW, the pressures on my MF35 are just about at factory specs. Have you read the other posts on this forum dealing with the spring issue, enough at least to read that these springs are very commonly missing on these old tractors?

I posted my original question in hope that someone would offer up some useful information.

I believe everyone's comments were well-intentioned, and I want things to be "right" as much as anyone. I've been working on this tractor for several months now and have at this point resolved all known problems and returned everything back to full functionality. The solution described above will be okay until I can do it right which I will eventually do.

Thanks

Thanks for your comments.

Dale

At the risk of stirring up a nest of hornets what kind of hydraulic/transmission fluid would you use in a MF35?

There are a bunch of posts about this in the archive, best probably by Big Dean. The consensus as best I could determine is Permatran III, or other fluid meeting the 1129A Massey specification; I found 'em at both Walmart and Tractor Supply...

:) George

(Now THIS will stir up the hornets nest)