Where I am we've had the wettest May on record. Every couple of days it rains and the grass loves it. The pasture is tall and thick and needs to be brush hogged, it's really going to work the tractor when it dries up enough to cut. These conditions are really tough on hydrostatic drive tractors. Today I'm going to give you three somewhatrelated tips to protect your hydro this spring.

First, you always want the hydro pedal down as far as safely possible. The hydro drives by pumping oil, with the pedal slightly depressed there's not much oil flowing and heat tends to build up. So, when brush hogging, put the tractor in a lower range and keep that pedal down.

Second, make sure you keep your hydro oil cooler clean. Most tractors have a little miniradiator in front of the main radiator for the hydrostatic oil to pass through to cool it. On many tractors they're so close together that it's hard to get debris cleaned out of both. In the video I put four new bolts and spacers in the hydro oil cooler to make it easy to get between them and clean them out. Cost less than $15 and took twenty minutes to install. If you have that same issue, consider this easy modification. Throughout this process I used WD40 Specialist IndustrialStrength Cleaner & Degreaser to clean my work area available here from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/WD40Speciali....

Finally, if you have a power shift or "shift on the go" hydro, make sure it's working so you can fine tune your ground speed. Mine had quit working, and a viewer had written about the same problem. Both of us had the same issue and it was simple to repair. There are two wires that go into the transmission on the left side and one had been severed. I stuck it back in there and the two speed is working again. Any time the tractor won't start, or an electrical function quits working, get under the tractor and see if a wire is loose or disconnected. It's usually pretty obvious. That is very common on tractors when going over tall brush...it tends to catch wires and pull them loose.

I'm hoping to get the brush hog into the field in a couple of days and start knocking down the weeds. If the rain will ever stop...

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