thats another point are the uni joints in correct position. on most machinery they need to be at 90deg to each other so that work freely and dont fight. hell even just changing to a 75w80 light mineral gear oil may just solve it. drain the oil and see what its like if its discoloured and has filings in it a change may be just the ticket.

my 2 cents is there is to much water in the oil.

trainzkid88 wrote:

i just had a look online and found out about a product called redline shockproof gear oil its a synthetic and is thin like light engine oil but works like 75w140 gear oil.
made specifically for dog clutch transmission in racing applications. they have 3 grades superlight, light and heavy available in the quart or gallon. from all good performance and racing suppliers. might be just the stuff.
 

Contacted Red Line technical support and had a helpful conversation about the application and the issues. The fellow recommended their MTL 75W80 GL-4 gear oil. It is the equivalent of 5W30 in viscosity (confess I don't understand how that can be...), and comes VERY highly recommended online for manual synchromesh transmissions, especially in cold climates. Just none available locally, of course...
Doing some reading in the 12F operator/maintanence manual, discovered a tiny print note that below 10F I should add up to 1 gallon of Kerosene to the control case...  Might try adding kerosene before springing for the Red Line (CDN$25/qt x 18 qts for the control housing).

I used Schaffer oil at the fleet I worked at. In those days it was a semisynthetic. The cost didn't break the bank like Lubricating Engineers oil or redline. A lot of fleets use Schaffer. I ran it in all my high use gear boxes. Was very skeptical in the beginning. It is hard to prove savings and improvement. Salesman touted huge electrical savings from just using it on the top bearing of deep turbine water pumps. LA County had many deep wells of 600to 1000 deep. The entire well shaft is hanging from the motor with one big timken taking all the load. We had computer technology measuring gallons being pumped verses electrical energy being used. Most of our wells pumped 24 hrs a day. Long story short, their synthetic over a high quality turbine oil saved us 5% in energy cost. With a 3 million a year electric bill, that is a lot of savings. I am now a solid convert. Schaffer costs 75% more than conventional oil, but each turbine only used 2 gallons. As far as wear, I ran it head to head against Chevron Delo 15-40 in a test on 2 over the road engines. Using oil sampling, the delo had the same wear debris in the oil at 10,000 miles as the Schaffer had at 20,000 miles. I also had a rig with lots of hydraulics on it that was poorly engineered and the oil would get so hot that valves would stick and malfunction. We were going to add more oil coolers, but changed to Schaffer synthetic and solved the problem. I am not a salesman. Just relaying my experience with synthetics. (30 years ago).

Just a note synthetics leak out about 10 times worse that conventional oils. May not have a place in this antique world.

gear oils have a different rating system to engine oils and hydrualics oil are different again so are air compressor/air tool oils. you cant compare them apples to apples.
as another has suggested maybe the oil is moisture contaminated and that moisture is freezing. wrap a heating blanket around the housing and drain it when its nice and warm.

you could try utto oil which is a universal tractor trans oil nearly all of them are a 75w80 gear lube and around a iso46 hydro oil and see what happens and is available in 20lt drums as a standard thing you can also get larger quantities too. we bought a 44 gal drum(205lt) and it was only $700aud.

that redline oil is available in gallon tins but is only available from redline oil dealers.

and i dont believe in diluting oil why add a contaminant to good oil. kero is a cutting agent and makes a good honing and drilling lube with a little oil added. my grandfather used kero as a lube on oil stones for sharpening knives and chisels if it wouldnt shave his arm it was blunt.

it may be possible to get heating pads and stick them to the housings as a preventitve measure many vehicles in alaska has this done. yes it means you have to unplug it from mains power everytime you want to use it during winter but it might just save money from preventing damage.

That is a fantastic idea to warm up the lube in the control box ... VW makes/made a good magnetic AC oilpan heater. I'll look locally see what I can come up with but a small electric frying pan with temp control (cut out heating element) place on/close to the control box should warm things up. A cheap 300w~500w halogen work light (under $20 CAD)  or heat lamp from Walmart  only use while you are there and keep a close eye no the project.
I have an old "cold coffee" heater that would take awhile to work but it would work.

 
 
 

All good ideas, Fat Dan. Slight issue is that I live off-grid... But I have some similar ideas. I use a portable generator when I am warming her up with the circulating heater. Really appreciate your creative thinking. Comes from living in the bush, eh?

Today I was able to warm the control box on Hanna and change out the oil. I used my little propane space heater to warm the cab and another propane radiant heater to heat the exterior part of the control box which I had covered with a tarp to hold in the warmth. It drained without issue. I then added 4.5 gal. of Amsoil 5W30 Series 3000 HD diesel oil. (After speaking with several oil technical folks, the Amsoil product looked to be a suitable lubricant for the application, and it was available locally.)

I then fired Hanna up without issue and there were none of the control box symptoms. All controls worked flawlessly and I was able to do a plowing run on my road. I think in the future when I need to run her in serious cold, I will use the little space heater. It worked really well. Photos of the day's work attached.