284 w/ Intermittent FEL

[dbd]

Hi all! I hope it's cooler where you all are compared to the 112-113 degree days we've had the last four days!!! Sheesh...

Anyway, I've got a 284 w/ ZL20 FEL w/ joystick control. What would cause the FEL to work intermitently? Sometimes it works right away, sometimes it takes a while to get it to do anything. It seems like when you play with the steering, turn the wheel back and forth, it makes the FEL work???

The FEL valve is plumbed from the pump then to the diverter valve. Any thoughts?

Thanks
dbd

 

[RonMar]

Well if the steering and 3PH are working normally, I would guess that the fluid is flowing thru the FEL control valve good(Maybe too good. I would start with a look at the safety relief valve on the FEL control valve. If it was able to stick open, the loader valve wouldn't be able to build any pressure for the loader cylinders to perform any work when the joystick is moved. By operating the 3PH or steering which are downstream of the loader valve, at the same time, you are provideing a little backpressure to the valve and might be helping to re-seat the safety. A 0-3000 PSI hydraulic pressure gauge might be usefull in troubleshooting this problem and insureing that the safety relief is set properly. The way I do it is to disconnect one of the lines from one of the working ports on the loader valve such as the line that lift's the loader. Of course before loosening any hydraulic line I make sure the loader is on the ground and all pressure in the system is relieved by operating all the valves. I screw the pressure gauge into this port. The line I removed from the port I secure into a bucket then I start the tractor. Once running I try and lift the loader. This sends pressure to the port with the gauge in it. Since the fluid has no where to go, the pressure quickly builds untill the pressure required to open the safety valve is reached and fluid flows thru the safety and onto the rest of the system and resovoir. The pressure read on the gauge while this is happening is the relief valve pressure setting. If the pressure reading on the gauge won't go up to the system rated pessure regardless of engine RPM, then the safety is set too low(or the pump is incapable of reaching that pressure).

My jinma manual says that the system hydraulic pressure is 15.5 MPA(megapascals) which converts to 2248 PSI. The safety valve release pressure says it should be set for 16 MPA +/- 0.5MPA or 2320 PSI +/- 72 PSI. This safety valve spec is for the 3PH safety valve but you would not want the loader safety set any higher. This procedure only takes a few minutes if you have the gauge and they are not very expensive. The only snag might be that the ports on your loader valve may be metric threaded in which case you would need a hydraulic rated adapter to connect a domestic gauge to it. Perhaps someone with more specific knowledge of this loader valve can confirm or deny this.

Have you changed to domestic fluid such as AW-32 in your hydraulics and flushed the system?

 

[Soundguy]

Hi all! I hope it's cooler where you all are compared to the 112-113 degree days we've had the last four days!!! Sheesh...

Thanks
dbd

The other poster gave you good ideas on the fel issue.

As for the Heat.. Oh.. man... I had a big male pig get stuck under a fence he tried to get under to get into another pen... in this heat he expired by the time I made my mid morning rounds.

The pen he died in is just an too bad a spot for the tractor.. so i had to hand dig a darn hole for him. I about passed out myself a couple time before I had a hole big enough for that brute... I still only have it half covered. I kicked him in and filled it half way before exhaustion set in on me. Will see about covering it the rest of the way tonight or tomorrow.

Soundguy