Oil Change on the Kubota L210

Did an oil change on the tractor today. Most labor intensive oil change I've ever heard of. I have the L210 that uses a removable element filter rather than the spin-on type. The part number for that if you haven't been able to find it is: 70000-14621 and you can find it here. My auto parts store had one once I could knew what the number was.

Have a number of clean rags around and a bucket to clean parts in. You'll need some kerosene and I'd recommend some nitrile gloves to keep your hands clean.

Start with a warm engine, the oil will drain faster/more completely. Put your catch bucket under the engine. You remove the oil filter by backing out the long bolt that runs down the center of it. Don't lose the spring and tapered flange into the catch bucket. Set aside the filter housing, bolt, spring and flange. Then you take out the drain plug at the bottom of the crank case and open the filler cap at the top of the valve cover.

At this point, I pushed the throttle up to zero, pulled the compression release and cranked it over a few turns to push the oil out of the pump as much as possible. I don't think there was a noticeable effect.

Instead of having an oil pan that's removeable, this particular engine has an 8 bolt removable panel on the right side of the crankcase. You have to remove this access panel so you can get at the magnetic plug and the oil strainer. Remove the plug on the outside of the block from the strainer. Use an open end wrench on the end nearest the block to unthread the strainer. Rinse off the with mineral spirits or kerosene. Remove metal from magnet and clean the screen assembly and all of the filter parts with kerosene.

Replace drain plug. Rinse inside of crankcase with kerosene. Splash kerosene up on the bulkheads and scrub off the sludge with a rag or parts cleaning brush. I'm not making this up. The service manual really says to do this, --especially when changing brands of oil.

Once you get the sludge broken up, remove the drain plug let drain. Mop out any remaining kerosene so the crankcase is clean and free of kerosene puddles.

Thread the strainer back in and tighten. Replace the drain plug and the plug opposite the strainer. Check access panel gasket and make a new one if needed. Replace access panel. Assemble oil filter and thread it back into filter head. Spring action makes this a little edgy if you're like me and you live in fear of crossthreading something expensive.

Then fill up with about 5 and a half quarts of high quality diesel spec oil and engage the starter (compression released and zero fuel) until the oil pressure light goes out. It will take 15 or 20 seconds of cranking. Check for leaks,

Then heat the glow plugs, set the throttle, fire that baby up and do one last check for leaks.