John Deere 2640 Steering/Hydraulics

I encountered a new problem this week with my 2640. I had been using the tractor for about 2 hours and the power steering just randomly went away. At first I had power steering to the left, but not to the right. Then it totally went away. Loader and three point still worked fine. By the time I got the tractor back to the house, the three point and loader would do nothing at an idle. They would chatter and work with the engine revved. Anyways, I let the tractor cool off for a couple of hours, started it up, and everything worked perfectly. Went out the next day and the tractor started up and worked just fine. After five minutes of operation the same issues began to arise. I reached down and the steering column was hot. It was at this point that I assumed that it was in the steering column. I ordered the kit and am planning on rebuilding the column tonight. However, I started the tractor up this morning to move it and had no hydraulics whatsoever. No three point, no loader, and no steering. I pulled really hard on the steering wheel and it was like everything opened up. The loader and three point then worked. Before I tear into this steering column, I just wanted to make sure that there might not be check valve or something that someone was aware of that would cause similar issues.

Thanks!

I can't be of any specific help other than to tell you that if you tear into the steering column to be SURE to keep EXACT track of ALL shims and parts.

If the shims get mixed up, IIRC, special tools/jigs are needed to correctly set up/shim it.

Ditto what wore out stated about keeping shims & other parts in same order. I'm not aware of any special tools or jigs required just special measurements for control valve bodies. My guess is one or more of the 6 large o-ring that seal valve body exteriors has failed. Those o-rings can be replaced by removing steering wheel & large adjusting nut then turn steering shaft CCW with valve bodies intact on shaft so the 6 o-rings can be viewed/replaced.

This post was edited by geok on 08/02/2023 at 06:03 pm.

Problem fixed. I rebuilt the steering column tonight and everything now works perfectly again. The bottom piston o-ring was blown. Pretty easy job except for those 6 new o-rings into the column itself. The bottom three were a little time consuming.

Congratulations on your repair. Thank you for updating your thread