Steering pump leak 1086

A week ago I replaced the shaft seals in the clutch pedal booster on the 1086, early 1978 model with open-center hydraulics. Saw the steering pump had a few drips of oil leaking from the center band on the main body so I removed it too and replaced the rubber sleeve inside the pump, hoping to stop the drip. Put it back together and everything was fine for a few hours of running time, then the steering pump started leaking a pretty good stream from around the metal body band. Snugged the bolts in the end of the pump and the leak stopped. Ran the tractor on the Gnuse bucket for a few hours, then on the auger a few more hours and no leaks.

This morn when I started pushing snow with this rig the leak coming from the pump body started up with a fairly good flow, maybe a pint a miniute? Pushed a little more snow and I lost the clutch pedal booster function entirely. Seems like it doesn't have enough oil in it to even disengage the clutch. Drove it in the shop and there it sits until after Christmas.

All other hydraulic functions including the steering work fine. The on-again off-again leak almost tells me there's an over-pressure problem in the steering pump. I do have an IH factory service manual that's very detailed and I used it when I did the seal replacement but I haven't dug it back out to look at the trouble-shooting section.

How does the oil flow direction go? Pump first and then clutch booster? I'm inclined to think something is going on inside the steering pump. Any ideas? Jim

"The on-again off-again leak almost tells me there's an over-pressure problem in the steering pump."

WRONG.

They are simply bastages to get to seal. I put the seal "band" in a H186 our town has, soon it was leaking again, just like your's, one of the the FEW failures I've EVER had resealing something hydraulic.

They thentook the pump to the CIH dealer and had the seal put in, it's gone a couple of years without leaking.

I don't know WHAT they did I didn't do... I had it squeaky-clean and torqued the bolts, yet my repair failed!

Just went out to the shop to look at the oil flow fold-out in the book and no, there can't be an over-pressure situation that I can see. Every other function in this circuit works, including the brakes. I know the brakes work cause I used them to kill the tractor when I pushed in on the clutch and the tractor kept going-right toward the shop. Got it stopped just about in time but not quite. Only made a little hole in the metal siding where the bucket hit. GRR!

I'm still a little baffled as to why the clutch booster lost function, unless so much oil was leaking out of the pump that it starved the booster. The booster gets oil from a tee that's tapped into the return line coming out of the pump. Yes, I checked the dipstick and the livel is OK. Not going to look at it till Monday anyway. Jim

"The booster gets oil from a tee that's tapped into the return line coming out of the pump."

Been a while since I've worked on one of those, but there's GOT to be a source of oil to the clutch booster other than "steering pump return".

You rebuilt the clutch booster... do you suppose an "O" ring could have failed?

Bob, I'm getting so frustrated with this compuker trying to import a scanned document! I'm trying to import a scanned schematic of the hydraulics but NOT!

Anyway, the pressure comes from the hyd pump and up through the steering pump first. Steering gets priority. What's left over comes out of the steering pump to a four way TEE, or I guess it'd be a cross, where it goes left to the clutch booster, right to the brake valve and down to the sump line in the belly of the tractor.

It could very well be that the booster let go too. Oh well, at least both of them are easy to get to.

This all started when a line in the right frame rail, going to the steering cylinder rubbed through and I had to remove it. Then things escalated from there. Jim

It will be interesting to here about what you find the trouble to be!

Be sure you have the correct seal.It should be about an 1/8 in. above the steel band.Have seen where the steel band is out of round & caused trouble.When you have the pump out replace the shaft seal to,will save time when you need it replaced later,it's been in as long as the sleeve.