When we're working with customers, many people are mortified at the idea of storing any of their machinery or attachments outside. I do it personally, and most of my stuff has been out here for about three years now. Today, we're going to walk around. We're going to look at some of the aging that's happened on my equipment and attachments, some of the extra preventative maintenance that I do in order to ensure that I don't have an issue. Maybe we can quell some of your concerns today about storing stuff outside. Join me today. We got a couple of interesting things to share with you.
First things first, we'll start with the big-ticket item. Most people are usually concerned about their tractor. The first place that you're going to see wear on a tractor that's stored outside is the paint starting to fade. The paints that are used on tractors and equipment are not, say, automotive-grade paints. They don't have the same amount of additives or UV protectants and stuff that you would find in a car or a truck that can be outside for a long time. Now, fading paint doesn't impact the operation of your machine. You're going to do exactly the same work. You're not impacting the longevity of your equipment, but its appearance of it can start to degrade over time. You can go and you can wax these things and bring some of that sheen back out again, but as time goes by, they will fade and you will notice sometimes things that are made in different factories and may have gone through different paint processes can fade at different rates, so we'll sometimes notice differences between, say, the tires and rims that may have been painted by Titan or a loader that was made at KMA and a tractor that was made in Japan. These are global products that are not all painted together and you can see them fade at different rates. When I'm storing my machine, I'm trying to keep it out of the sun. I frequently will park it back here in the woods underneath a little bit of tree canopy here in the summertime to keep that intense sun off of it.
The next extra maintenance step that I take with my tractor is regular greasing. When you look at the maintenance schedules for your machine, you're going to notice that most equipment calls out very frequent grease schedules. In the terms of our loaders here, you're supposed to grease these things every 10 hours or so. Now, I do mine maybe a little bit more often than that even because I notice when I go and pump grease into these joints that I often can see water and moisture start to come out of them. It doesn't take a whole lot for these to be out in the rain all the time. For that moisture to get into these joints and never dry out and taking a grease gun and pumping an extra couple tubes of grease around your machine into all those moving points is going to push that moisture out, preventing rust buildup from the inside of the pins and joints.
The third preventative step that I take on my tractor is changing my transmission fluid regularly. When you go through and look at the maintenance schedule for your machine, your first transmission fluid interval is at 50 hours, and then depending on your machine, you're going to run somewhere between 250 to 500 hours after that. If you're like me, it could take a long time in order to put that many hours on your machine, so it's a good idea to be changing your transmission fluid regularly. When you pull that dipstick out, if you notice any kind of frothing or bubbling on the transmission fluid, that's going to tell you you've gotten moisture into that fluid. Your transmission in your tractor is actually open to the elements to a point in the top of the transmission. There's going to be a breather that allows pressure to escape from the transmission as things warm up, but it also allows air to go into the transmission as things cool, and that air going back and forth can draw moisture into that transmission, especially if the machine is sitting outside going through daily, say, warming and cooling processes throughout the day as the weather changes. For that reason, if your machine's stored outside, I would encourage you to change your transmission fluid more often than what's called for in the owner's manual at a hundred hours. Now, I've done mine twice. I probably will do it again here for a third time this fall. I like to fall into an annual maintenance routine with my tractor, even when I'm not hitting those hourly intervals because it's stored outside.
The fourth thing that I would watch out for in a tractor that's stored outside, it's something I could use a little bit of advice from all of you on, is how to prevent mice and rodents from getting at a piece of equipment. The plastics and the wires that are on machinery can actually almost taste good to certain rodents, and it can do a lot of damage very, very quickly if a rodent gets into a machine and starts chewing at the wiring harnesses. They can be very costly and time-consuming in order to replace. Now, I know you could do things like add mothballs or we sell a product called Cab Fresh that helps repel those things, but I would be curious if there's further steps that any of you know to take to a machine that lives outside. Anything you can do to keep the vermin away from your equipment is going to help you in the long run.
I notice on the hydraulic hoses that are out here on my grapple that I'm starting to see a little bit of weathering. On the ones that aren't covered here with these wear sheaths, you're starting to be able to see some places that the hose is starting to dry out, that maybe the UV from the sun is starting to make the labels and stuff wear off, and over time, that kind of wear is going to continue. I would say if you can go through and find places where you're able to cover those hoses with these fabric sheaths, you're probably doing yourself a favor, in particular to the sun and UV that can be so destructive and break down these rubbers. You're going to make your hose last a lot longer by protecting it from the elements with something as simple as a little bit of fabric.
My snowblower here has been outside for three years, and I think looking at the wear on this particular implement is interesting. You notice the nuts and the bolts that are on this have held up remarkably well over three years, probably better galvanized hardware. There's some stainless pieces here and there that are going to hold up to that salt and expected water and stuff that you're going to have on a snowblower. That's very different though from some of the cheaper, say, imported flail and stuff that I have where you're going to notice those nuts and bolts can rust really, really quickly, even within a couple of weeks or months. They just don't hold up to the weather as well, so quality hardware in a quality implement does make a big difference in how that stuff is going to last.
You'll notice the chain on here is interesting too. The chain has held up really well, but I actually maintain and care for this chain periodically in the off-season. I take a dry chain lube and I spray these chains down periodically to try to keep a protective film on top of them.
That chain lube is made to not be washed off by simple rain or a little bit of water and it's protecting these chains and gears from rusting. A little bit of preventative maintenance every couple of months as I'm lubricating things up with that chain lube, I wander on over to the snowblower and spray these components down as well to protect them from corrosion.
My next tip for storing things outside is to keep them up off the ground. Now, there's a couple benefits to this. Obviously from a structural standpoint, if you have metal sitting down on the ground, it's going to pick up moisture. It's going to corrode a lot faster. I also keep most of my implements on skids. That makes them really easy to pick up if I need to rearrange things, keeps them off the ground to keep them away from that corrosion, and raises them up a couple of inches that makes them easier to put onto my three-point hitch. Keeping a couple of extra skids around for your outdoor implements is a great way to care for them.
This backhoe is a great example of outdoor storage. I bought this secondhand and the prior owner to me had stored this outside for its entire life, so this BH76 backhoe is pushing about 20 years now of being out in the elements and you can see the places that it's started to age. Looking at the hydraulic fittings right here, you can see they're all structurally sound and they're not leaking yet, but there's some chalking and corrosion developing on them. Looking up here at the hydraulic cylinder, this is probably the most expensive outdoor wear here that I can point to. There's places here where the plating has come off and rust has started to take hold. Now, this right now still makes it past all the seals okay, but over time, I would expect to see some additional leaking and stuff, maybe a cylinder being needed to be replaced. A great way to prevent this thing if you have your stuff outside is that dry lube that I talked about. Simply spraying these things down can create that protective layer on top of them. You could also be a little smarter than I was. When you park this stuff out here by retracting as many of the cylinders as possible, keeping that rod inside of the cylinder, you're going to protect those surfaces from any kind of additional weathering.
My final recommendation for outdoor storage is in regards to my sprayer. This last season, I didn't winterize this sprayer soon enough and I let a little bit of water in the bottom of it. That water froze and it broke one of the fittings. While most of this equipment, if it's got fluids or radiators or whatever, it's going to go through freeze-thaw cycles just fine, but with straight water in it, you want to keep any kind of sprayers and stuff in the back of your mind because that can do damage to your equipment, so before that season comes around, adding a little bit of antifreeze to the inside is going to make sure that you don't end up with leaking components when you go to use your sprayer like I did. That's a few tips for outside equipment storage.
As you can see, when you walk around dealership lots, we don't have room to store all the stuff inside. For a short period of time, there's absolutely zero issue storing things outside, and over the long term, things can hold up just fine outside. I think a little added maintenance, though, is probably prudent. Protect things from the sun where you can, make sure that you're eliminating moisture wherever possible, regardless if it's in those joints or coming up from the ground. Keeping things out of the sun and in a dry environment is just going to help them not weather as quickly. Don't feel like you can't set something outside. If you could use something functional for your tractor and you don't have a clean air-conditioned garage to keep it in, don't worry about setting something in your backyard. It generally works out just fine. If you've been doing it and you've got additional tips, I would love to see them down in the comments so that we can all learn these kinds of things together.
