Hydraulic control detent problem ?????

On our tractor (with two hydraulic controls on the same block), one hydraulic control lever has no detent (hold) position, it will only operate if the operator is holding it in place (pushing forward or pulling it back). Once you release it, the lever automatically moves back on its own to the neutral position and the cylinder ram stops moving.

The other lever (on the same control block) has a detent position so when the lever is moved in either direction, it operates like the first lever I mention BUT when located to the limit (forward or back), it will hold in place (the detent position). When the hydraulic cylinder on an implement reaches it's limit when that lever is in the detent hold position, it's supposed to automatically move back to the neutral position on it's own (according to the manual) BUT IT DOESN'T. Today when hooked to an implement, the control lever stayed in place (in the detent position) and the cylinder blew up, obviously a problem somewhere.

So some questions ......

1. Is it strange that one control has a detent position and the other one doesn't?
2. Do all or most controls have a detent position ?
3. If the control has a detent and it is working correctly, is it pressure buildup in the system that causes it to trip and return to neutral?
4. Can the detent feature be removed from that half of the hydraulic control unit so that both are the same as the one without the detent feature?
5. There must be an advantage to the detent feature, I just can't figure out what it might be?

I have no idea what tractor you have but I imagine what you're dealing with is float position. You can pull the lever up and and it will stick allowing the bucket to kind of float on top of the ground.

Many valves with detents are adjustable to what pressure it takes to kick them to neutral. Some have no unlatching provision in them. The blowing of the cylinder means the system relief valve exceeds the capacity of the cylinder or cylinder was in poor condition. Need to know what tractor or if add on valve, what valves you have. Can't really help otherwise.

Would us help you if you filled in the blanks. Most hyd control return to neutral when you let off of them so that you do not over load the pump/relief valve. Some loader controls have a float which lets the bucket float on the ground so that is an open set up. So what do you have and what is the problem??????????????????

The tractor is a David Brown (Case) 1410 ..... British made of course, it belongs to our tractor club. Someone on the DB forum said the detent should kick out at 2200 pounds of pressure. I thought the problem might have been obvious, we blew up a cylinder and since I don't know much about how all of this stuff works, the various questions were asked. It's possible of course that the cylinder was suspect as some have mentioned, it might have been past it's due date, it was an old one that was available and added onto the implement. Since it is a club tractor and various members are using it at different times, this presents a problem of course since every tractor seems to have its quirks and familiarization with the tractor is not easy in such a situation for everyone using it.

Though the years I have had detents that would not return to neutral. I have taken them apart to find that they have rusted up. I cleaned them up and put a little grease on everything and they worked fine. You need to be carefull because most of the detents have three small steel balls in them and the are spring loaded. These balls are experts at flying out and disappearing while you are taking the detent apart. As far as the cylinder (blowing up), how old is it? If it's an old one that was designed for an 800 psi system, 2200 psi is way too much pressure for it to handle and that could be the reason it went bad. I doubt that it had anything to do with the detent.

I don't know about the David Brown having one detent valve and one not.
A detent valve is a very handy thing in the field, when you want to hit a lever, and let it do its thing. Sometimes you don't have enough hands to be holding onto a lever every time you're turning, while doing everything else that you need to do.
As Ken indicates, cleaning can be an issue. Most detents I've seen are adjustable. Quite often through a little hole in the end of the spool cap. Typically the detent would kick off below maximum system pressure. It's quite possible you could adjust a properly working detent to not hold at all, or to lock up, as yours is.

Standard on Kubota M series is for the first remote to be a self canceling detent valve, second valve can be no detent or detent depending on the customers desire . Sticking detent can be repaired by any one with valve knowledge and yes you can remove the detent if wanted. As for use thousands of things like coming out to the end of the field pulling a disk, just hit the valve to up and forget it. When it tops out valve should kick out. System relief should have protected your cylinder.

System relief won't protect the cylinder if it is an old low pressure cylinder used on a newer higher pressure system