OK, it was kind of cold (by Southern definition), heat was running in the shop, and there wasn't ANY field work that this weekend farmer needed to do. So we tore into the rear end. There was quite a bit of water in the axle tubes, it appeared to have separated. I tried to mop the rear out with the ring gear in it but wasn't having much luck so I pulled it out so I could get at it better. At lunch I came to the house and pulled up "drilling axle tube drains" and went back to do so, no more water in the tubes for me
. Dad was quite surprised by all the water, and didn't even protest my drilling the case. All he said was something about 23 years at work and they never ran into this. He was having fun wrenching on the Cadet---even volunteered to help scrape gaskets off----dang what did they put on those things at the factory? Ring gear is back in, axles tubes need mopping out, flushing bearing, and new seals and then we can reassemble. The cork gasket wasn't leaking, but dad picked the whole thing off real easily and nodded in approval to changing it.