Steve,
Welcome to the forum!! I would suggest that you look at the manual section of thew site (below) and look through the 1x9 owners manuals stored there... You'll find out all this type of stuff there, and then some...
You fluid color suggests that someone put in ATF in it at some point. While it'll work, is is not the recommended fluid, which is IH/Case Hy-Tran... A fluid and filter change is always a good place to start on these machines, because then you'll know where your're at... The fluid should be at the level of the fill plug on the rear cover plate... A 169 is a nice tractor... They didn't make many of them, compared to the rest of them...