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Why does my loader not stay up?

J

John Athey

Member
When the tractor is running, the loader slowly comes down. What can I do to fix it? Tractor is a Farmall 460 D, loader is a #52. Help.
 
Sounds like you have one or more hydraulic cylinders leaking internally, or a leak in the control valve. I'm not familiar with that loader, but if there are more than one cylinder connected to the arms that won't stay up (one on either side, most likely), then I'd look at rebuilding/ replacing the control valve for those cylinders.
 
Its quite normal for a loader to settle down a bit. It depends how much it comes down and how fast. I was using my friends john deere a 7920 with a loader its only 1 year old and the loader settled down on it as well, about 8 inches in 10 minutes. If your loader settles more than that you could have an oil leak in the valve or maybe the O rings in the cylinders.
 
> Sounds like you have one or more hydraulic
> cylinders leaking internally, or a leak in the
> control valve.

An internal leak in a cylinder won"t allow it to settle. As the shaft slides in the total internal volume decreases. That means some oil has to leave. If oil isn"t dribbling out anywhere the problem is most likely in the control valve.
 
If the cylinder is allowing fluid to pass around the packing on the piston, the fluid simply moves from one side of the piston to the other, allowing it to sink back into the cylinder. The oil doesn't leave the cylinder, which is why it's known as leaking internally.
 
BlakeinTN is correct. I wanted to isolate the same problem on mine to either the cylinders or the valve. How I did it. Raised the bucket and set it on a trailer, released pressure, disconnected hoses at cylinders, screwed plugs into cylinders to seal IN/OUT, backed off trailer & waited to see if settled to ground. It did, thus proving the internal cylinder leak. Rebuilt cylinders, fixed problem, end of my story.
It could have been both, I suppose, but in my case cyls were a for sure & once they were fixed and all was well, the valve must be OK.
 
My old 560 is so worn out that when I use it to rake hay and pick the rake up to turn its back down by itself by the time I'm done turning. But it did help when I reversed the hoses so it lifted when I pushed on the lever to lift instead of pulling on it. So one side of the valve must be worn a lot more than the other. Lee
 
> If the cylinder is allowing fluid to pass around
> the packing on the piston, the fluid simply
> moves from one side of the piston to the other,
> allowing it to sink back into the cylinder.

As the piston sinks into the cylinder the shaft follows it, taking up some of the space formerly occupied by oil. Draw a lengthwise cross-section of a fully extended cylinder and a fully retracted one. Compare the two drawings and it will be obvious that there is less room for oil in the fully retracted one. Thus in order for the cylinder to retract some oil must leave it.
 
You ar eboth right. When a piston is leaking it makes a lot more pressure in the system becuase the rod diameter is so small. This higher pressure will force it's way past a pretty good valve. It may also pop the thermal relief on some control valves. A leaking piston with the cylinder under load will overpressure something, sometimes the rod packing.

In reverse, this is the way to move a lightly loaded cylinder fast: you rig it up to apply pressure to both sides of the cylinder and it will extend based on the rod volume displaced. It moves faster because the cylinder, not under load, moves at the pump displacement rate, not because it has pressure on it.

A blocked-in cold system which warms up will try to move the cylinder the same way.
 
Comon' now,

It's not "normal" for a loader to settle.

I can show ya one that was parked with the head 15 feet off the ground last haying season and it's still right where he left it.

One theory says that when parked with the head up, the pressure forces the seals out against the cylinder wall and will make 'em last longer.

Allan
 
The older we get the more trouble we have with keeping our loader to stay up as long as we would like.
If you do not have any obvious signs of oil leaking from system you may have air trapped somewhere and it is bleeding internally.
If it growls or vibrates when the control reaches the stop and pops back to neutrol it is probably air in system. Much like water pipes make noise with air in system.

GLuck
Dell
 
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