[tgb24]

Hi there: totally new here , been lurking and decided to pull the trigger on a 1989 1811 in pretty good condition. The engine was rebuilt and has about 30 hrs on it. I needed something for just snow to clear a 180 ft driveway here in New England and this tractor seemed to fit the bill, it came with weights chains and the 450 blower. My other option was to fit a snow thrower on the front of my Craftsman lawn tractor. - I soon talked myself out of that!. Anyhow, I got the tractor home yesterday and was a little disappointed to find a very small puddle of tranny fluid on the garage floor after running it for a bit and operating the hydraulic lift etc. I wanted to find out where it was coming from so I took off all the covers and after cleaning everything and running again it's clear it's coming from the drive shaft entering the pump. After it's stopped it no longer leaks.

So my questions are ; is this normal and a big deal on a 30 year old tractor and should I fix it.? Or just leave it , let it drip and keep the fluid topped up.?
Is there anything that could cause the leak like over filling the tranny or too much pressure build up etc.?

And last but not least how do I get the drive shaft out of the pump to replace the seal if I decide to tackle it? I don't think I need to remove the transmission and can maybe decouple the shaft and get at it that way?

I have attached some pics of the tractor and also the drive shaft leak point into the pump.

Any assistance or advice would be much appreciated , I'm totally new to tractors of this vintage but I can tell straight away by driving it that this thing blows the socks off my 24 hp Craftsman ..way more torque !! And it's built like a tank. They certainly don't build them like this any more.

Role on snow here in New England

Cheers Tom