I've been working on an M600. Replaced several hoses, main drive belt, alternator and its belt. The machine starts and runs well now, but the hydraulic fluid is quite milky. The pink color makes me think it is ATF and the milky color makes me think it is contaminated with water. Should I replace the fluid? If I do how do I make sure that the old fluid is flushed out of the hoses and cylinders? What are the downsides to keeping the old milky fluid?
Milky ATF - should I replace it?
- Thread starter crew2447
- Start date
thynes
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2014
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- 71
If the fluid looks like a strawberry milk shake you have water in it. Corrosion and wear are the problems with water in the oil. You can verify by draining off a small amount a boiling it, in say a tin can, until the moisture if boiled off, at which time it will look like regular ATF. I had a tractor that had about 15 gallons of water contaminated hydraulic fluid. I drained it out and boiled it in a trash can with a turkey cooker until the water was gone. I then strained and poured this oil back in and ran the tractor's hydraulics to their full stroke for a while to flush/mix with the residual contaminated oil. I did this whole process a few times until everything looked normal. I am sure I didn't do any favors to the oil, but it never got hot to the point that it burned. While it was boiling it never got above 212 F. I could tell the moisture was cooked out when the temp started to creep past 212. I used a non-contact thermometer to judge the oil temp. You may want to try that with your rig...
Never thought of boiling it, I did have some once that I used cold weather to separate and turn the water to ice but boiling sounds a lot quicker.
If you have water in the fluid, that might get expensive. However, I have added regular AW32 hydraulic fluid to the ATF in my 600 (a emergency repair) and ended up with pink fluid. Don't ask me why because I don't know how it turned pink, it was new hdy fluid in a sealed container so I know it was not contaminated by water. But it definitely turned the ATF pink. I just left it, as I knew there was not water in it, but it sounds like your not sure. I think if I was you I probably would change the fluid just to be sure. I would guess it may be mixed, but better safe than sorry. Anybody have any idea why the ATF would turn pink with hyd fluid mixed with it? I was under the impression atf was basically hyd fluid with friction additives for clutch's in it.
