FEL only raising

[groffster]

New to the site so I hope I’m not posting something that has been talked about and I just missed it.

I just bought my first Kubota, a B7200, a couple weeks ago. When testing it out at the previous owner’s house where was nothing that I could find wrong with it. The FEL seemed a little slower than I would of though it should have been but everything else seemed to be working perfectly and it was recently serviced by a Kubota dealer. I have used is off and on since then and it has worked great till today. I was coming down off my hill and was crossing a ditch. As the front end went down into the ditch I raised the FEL up high enough to so that I wouldn’t get caught up on anything. As I cleared the other side of the ditch I pushed up on the level to lower the FEL and it continued up. I stopped the tractor and no matter whether I moved the level up or down the FEL would raise and not lower. It would even rise when I would put the level in the float position, in fact, when placing it in the float position it would raise faster than normal. I then tried to curl and un-curl the bucket. It would only curl (or un-curl, I can’t remember) no matter what way I moved the lever. I then started to wiggle it around and all of a sudden the hydraulic controls started working correctly. A little latter it happened again, same symptoms again and same fix. Then again later on….same problem.

I’m not a hydraulics’ person and I don’t really know where to start or what I want to look for. Any help would be appreciated. I hope that it all makes sense. I will provide more information if I come across it. Thanks in advance!
-Charlie

 

[G-Man]

Sometimes mine is slow to lower if I have three point lever not in the exact center position.

 

[groffster]

Thanks G-Man, but this isn't just a "slow to lower" issue. Something gets stuck and it will only go up when trying to lower and raise.

 

[meanjean]

If all else fails clean the hydraulic suction filter.
Disconnect and reconnect your hydraulic hoses.

What services did the Kubota dealer provide?

 

[Eric McCarthy]

I'm starting to think the hydraulic lines are cossed at the joystick. The loader shouldn't raise up at all in the "float" position. It's supposed to unlock the hydraulics and let the loader flot along the ground for pushing snow.

 

[groffster]

If all else fails clean the hydraulic suction filter.
Disconnect and reconnect your hydraulic hoses.

What services did the Kubota dealer provide?

meanjean, thanks for the reply. I will try to find the "hydraulic suction filter" and give that a try. As for the Kubota service, it was supposed to be all the fluids on the tractor, oil, trans, ect. I'm not actually 100% sure if that includes hydraulics.

 

[groffster]

I'm starting to think the hydraulic lines are cossed at the joystick. The loader shouldn't raise up at all in the "float" position. It's supposed to unlock the hydraulics and let the loader flot along the ground for pushing snow.

Eric, I agree with your comment on the float position, but if the lines where crossed wouldn't it be working incorrectly all the time? In my case its only working incorrectly at random and never for a long time. The majority of the FEL is working normally.

 

[groffster]

Well, I finally figured out what it was. I was talking to a guy at work, who ended up being an ex-kubota mechanic. After finding that out I went and explained my problem to him. He said that he wasn't a hydrolics person, but told me of someone who had a similar problem with an attached backhoe. He said that it ended up being that the 3pt hitch control was still in the raise position. That got me thinking, I didn't have this problem till I put on my blade and was using both of them. I went home that night and threw on my blade. put it in the raise position and didn't back the handle down at all and the FEL stopped working correctly. I then went and moved the level down one notch and walla, the FEL started working fine. I was able to re-produce it a couple time in a row. ) Thanks for the input everyone.