Leaky hydraulic valve on backhoe pictures

This vavle is leaking badly. It runs out at a pace of 4 gallons in 6 hours! It looks as if I take the 2 slot headed bolts out there would be some sort of seal in there. But i have never worked on hydraulic control valves. Can you shed some light on this before I tear into it. Thanks alot

There's an "O" ring, a chevron ring or WHATEVER at each end of the spool. A good hyraulic shop will have what you need and you will quickly learn (after possibly cutting a ring or two) the best way to install the rings/put the spool back in the valve!

That cover you see may hold a dust/wiper seal but not the high pressure seal. You will need to clean everything up around the valve spool. Then remove the linkage and then that cover. The valve spool should then pull out the top of the valve. Be careful as there should be springs under the spool. Keep track of where everything goes. The spool may have orings in the valve body bore. These would usually have flat backup rings too. Your valve may not have sealing rings on the valve spools. Many valves depend on the fit of the spool/housing to keep the oil sealed. If your valve is that way then you will need to replace the valve section complete.

What brand of back hoe is it??? You should look at a parts diagram before tearing into it. If there are not seals then if you remove the spool it may leak worse. If there are not orings/seal then I would wait until I found a replacement valve section before I tore into it. You could make the old valve unusable.

"Your valve may not have sealing rings on the valve spools. Many valves depend on the fit of the spool/housing to keep the oil sealed."

While it is TRUE the working/pressure area of the spool is sealed by the precision fit between the spool and it's bore I have NEVER seen a valve without some type of sealing arrangement at the outer ends of the spool to prevent external leakage. Can you truthfully say you have EVER seen such a valve?

It is a vermeer backhoe. Thanks

As others have said there should be some sort of seal under the little flat cover with the two screws in it. Many mfgs tend to use the same brand of valves in all of their equipment and many brands tend to seal their products in one specific way. That said, I just resealed the spools on a Vermeer machine for a customer last week. All that was under the cover on that machine was an O-ring and another flat back up/antiextrusion ring. It's not that hard to get them out with a pick, and you DO NOT have to remove the valve spool to do it. In fact most spools on an application like this are going to have a return spring attached to the bottom of them, inside a cage, and short of taking that whole assembly apart the spool isn't going to come out anyway.

As far as getting the parts you need, O-rings used in an application such as this are typically going to be a 90 durometer instead of the common 70 durometer that you typically find in kits. While the 70 will work for a sort term they are more likely to wear out and need to be replaced again more quickly than the 90. Too O-rings used somewhere like this can often be odd sized/metric/etc, something else that's going to be all but impossible to find in a standard kit. In other words your best bet is to go ahead and get the parts from Vermeer and solve yourself some future headaches. The pieces aren't that expensive, and if it were me doing the job for a customer I'd also go ahead and reseal all of them. Given the application, them being outside in the weather, etc, etc, the condition of one in a case like this is usually indicitive of the condition of all of them. In other words if one isn't leaking today it'll probably leak tomorrow, right after you get the seal in another one replaced and everything back together. Like the old saying, "A stitch in time saves nine". Good luck.

What I was talking about not having any seals was the high pressure chamber. Most of the seals that are right out at the end of a spool are to seal out water/containments and hold in low pressure leakage from the high pressure sealing system.

Thanks alot guys. Its nice to have polite people on here! I think I will tear into it this weekend.