[NiasNeb]

I finally got enough nerve today to crack open the rear cover from the transmission and drain all the oil out. When I did just that this is what I found.

It appears that some previous owner did something to this transmission which nobody will ever know what it was. Anyway two of the threaded holes in which the cover bolts into on the transmission have been broken away (indicated by the red boxes). In the blue box someone has drilled a new hole and added threads and put in a new much smaller bolt that was too long to even screw the bolt down into (the bolt was longer than the hole). In fact part of the screw hole actually went through the cast.

In the interest of not having this torn apart in the middle of the garage for a long period of time I redid what I undid and put in a new liquid gasket. I'd like to fix this right. Do I need a new transmission or is there some cheaper way to resolve this issue beyond a liquid gasket?

The entire cover was plastered on with liquid gasket and there might of even been a prayer. I didn't realize (until now) how blurry the camera phone shot is but I think it delivers the idea enough to go ahead and post it.

Also when I removed the filter nothing dripped down into the oil pan under the tractor like I would of expected. Is this normal if I drain all the fluid out of the rear end first or should something have spilled down when I removed the filter? There was some oil in the filter (perhaps two tablespoons) but not what I would expect to see.

I know the saga on this one will continue...