I've got an old John Deere 826. I needed to replace the 3 bushings on the ends of the auger shafts, especially the one between the impellor and the pulley, so I drained the gearcase to check condition of those bushings as well - they were OK. Now I need to refill, so I checked the service manual everyone links to, TM1234 from July 1981. On page 16 of the manual, in the specifications section, it says you should use a GL5 gear oil. Then, on page 167, it says you should use 5W20 engine oil. The oil I drained out smells like gear oil, but moves like engine oil - so either it's worn to either stink or be more fluid, or it's been mixed over the years. If you don't want to read the whole manual, I uploaded those two pages here: https://imgur.com/a/cd59T Which do I use???
Here are pics of my machine, sorry I didn't take any "overall" shots.
Here are pics of my machine, sorry I didn't take any "overall" shots.