Hydraulic oil

What is the best hydraulic oil for an International 200?

Thanks,

Billy

its overkill,but I use hytrans from IH

It depends on where you are and how you will use your 200. The more modern more expensive oils have many additives to enable them to work with the wet clutch packs and brakes that the modern tractors have. These additives don't enable the oil to do anything better for an old dry clutch and brake tractor like your 200, than plain gear oil or hydraulic oil will do. What the these tractor hydraulic will do however is absorb a lot more moisture than older cheaper hydraulic oil or gear oil. The moisture gets in when humidity is high, and condenses on the interior surfaces of the transmission and hydraulic housing. The Hy-Tran oil absorbs it, and then the oil is described by the worried owner posting here as looking like a coffee milkshake. Posts about this come up here frequently. If you use your 200 long enough and hard enough frequently enough to get the oil hot enough for long enough the moisture will be driven off. Otherwise you will probably need to change it at least every year, or more frequently if you are in a high humidity area because the moisture in the oil is not good for your bearings. If you use conventional oil such as what the tractor was shipped with originally you need to simply loosen the drain plugs and drain the water off the bottom once a year. In this case spending more is probably not good for your tractor.

This is a case where the cheap 303 oil will do nicely. No need for anything more expensive.

Personal opinion, that oil is best used my wood stove to add btu's. Bud

Ill second 303 although you cant find it by that name now . Its now called vintage tractor hydraulic fluid and either one are fine .

(quoted from post at 22:22:18 10/27/21) Ill second 303 although you cant find it by that name now . Its now called vintage tractor hydraulic fluid and either one are fine .
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<img src=https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cvphotos/cvphoto106136.png>

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Actually if you read the label of the Harvest King it meets the J20A spec so it is better than the so called 303 oils.

WHO DISTRIBUTES HARVEST KING?

Rural King in the Eastern part of the country and Atwoods I think out west

The Harvest King Vintage tractor oil has label information stating "a medium with the correct friction and heat transfer characteristics for proper operation of the tractor wet brakes and power take-off unit. I am pretty sure that the 200 has dry brakes and dry PTO clutch, so there is no advantage to using this oil. The wording implies that it has the additives to protect the wet clutch and brakes and these additives also absorb moisture. If you can't control yourself and have to use it, and your 200 doesn't get the amount of usage needed to prevent moisture build-up, at least check it for water contamination frequently.

On the 303 thing I got a solicitation in the mail recently where there is a class action suit in effect which included TSC whereby if you used the named oil and had a breakdown, you could follow the rules....supply proof I'd guess....somehow...and apparently be compensated. So no doubt, the names and listings on the container will not be as they used to be.