Hopefully someone will be able to explain to me a strange occurrence that happened today. I'll include all the details that I can.
I was moving some stumps and with the FEL on my B6100. All went just fine. I started moving some dirt and had some difficulty getting the bucket to curl, it didn't respond to my moving the lever initially. 30 seconds later all was fine; I assumed just a little hiccup, perhaps the load was just a bit heavy. I continued, working and about a minute later, when I tried to lift the bucket, nothing happened. It was stuck. It wouldn't go up, and wouldn't go down. I managed to curl the bucket down with raised the tractor, and when I moved the control to raise the bucket, the front of the tractor returned to the ground, and the bucket was 8 inches off the ground, this way I could drive back to the house to fix the problem. The lift arms were still completely unresponsive although the bucket would still curl up and down. 3pt hitch was fine. Started to diagnose back at the house. Cylinders were fine - stood on the bucket and the hydraulics held. The pump was fine - it was making lots of pressure, and when I activated the lift controls, the lines jumped as to indicate pressure in the system. I elected to swap the quick connect lines from the bucket curl and the raise lower controls to see if the problem was the control valves. When I tried to reconnect the "lowering" side of the FEL controls, that is to say the line that would send fluid to the cylinders instructing a go down command, I couldn't overcome the pressure in the system to reconnect. Carefully I loosened where the hose threads onto the solid line and bled off the pressure. I retightened the hose, and reconnected the disconnects to test my theory and rule out the control valves. To my astonishment, everything worked perfectly, no issues at all, other than the control valves were crossed. I connected everything as it was supposed to be and all has worked perfectly. No issues or hiccups. So my question is, following this long story, was the system hydraulically locked? If so, what causes that, how can I prevent it, and should I be dismantling the system and flushing it for contaminants? Thanks in advance for your time and comments.... Regards.
I was moving some stumps and with the FEL on my B6100. All went just fine. I started moving some dirt and had some difficulty getting the bucket to curl, it didn't respond to my moving the lever initially. 30 seconds later all was fine; I assumed just a little hiccup, perhaps the load was just a bit heavy. I continued, working and about a minute later, when I tried to lift the bucket, nothing happened. It was stuck. It wouldn't go up, and wouldn't go down. I managed to curl the bucket down with raised the tractor, and when I moved the control to raise the bucket, the front of the tractor returned to the ground, and the bucket was 8 inches off the ground, this way I could drive back to the house to fix the problem. The lift arms were still completely unresponsive although the bucket would still curl up and down. 3pt hitch was fine. Started to diagnose back at the house. Cylinders were fine - stood on the bucket and the hydraulics held. The pump was fine - it was making lots of pressure, and when I activated the lift controls, the lines jumped as to indicate pressure in the system. I elected to swap the quick connect lines from the bucket curl and the raise lower controls to see if the problem was the control valves. When I tried to reconnect the "lowering" side of the FEL controls, that is to say the line that would send fluid to the cylinders instructing a go down command, I couldn't overcome the pressure in the system to reconnect. Carefully I loosened where the hose threads onto the solid line and bled off the pressure. I retightened the hose, and reconnected the disconnects to test my theory and rule out the control valves. To my astonishment, everything worked perfectly, no issues at all, other than the control valves were crossed. I connected everything as it was supposed to be and all has worked perfectly. No issues or hiccups. So my question is, following this long story, was the system hydraulically locked? If so, what causes that, how can I prevent it, and should I be dismantling the system and flushing it for contaminants? Thanks in advance for your time and comments.... Regards.