Top gear, bumpy road, long FEL joystick.

[EdKing]

Had an interesting, if somewhat alarming experience today. I was driving my tractor home from my brothers after doing some yard smoothing for him. I am tooling along in top gear, throttle wide open, when I hit a very bumpy section on my road. All of a sudden my joystick for the FEL bonces down, causing the bucket to move, causing more bounce, causing the joystick to bounce more, causing the bucket to move, etc. The oscillation got pretty bad before I got it stopped. The stick is about 6-8 inches long, after that adventure I think I'm going to look into shortening it. Just thought I'd share this experience with every one.

[MarkV]

Ed, that would get my attention![img]/w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif[/img] My tractor has a little “U” shaped metal plate that can flip over the base of the FEL lever to keep it from being moved. I have never used it but will keep you experience in mind and may use it in the future. Might be a consideration for yours rather than shortening the lever.

MarkV

[EdKing]

<font color=blue>My tractor has a little “U” shaped metal plate that can flip over the base of the FEL lever to keep it from being moved.</font color=blue>

That sounds like a good idea as well. I'll have to check on the feasibility of adding a plate to stop the movement of the joystick. It was kind of startling when it happened, the bucket and stick bouncing up and down. Bad enough the bouncing I was getting from the road, the FEL bouncing had my tractor singing <font color=red>"Whole lotta shakin' goin' on."</font color=red>

[Harv]

I have one of those U-shaped doohickeys on my loader, too. It's primary function appears to be for attaching and removing the FEL from the tractor (although it might help with Ed's problem, too). Here's what the manual sez about it:

[EdKing]

Thanks for the pic Harv, that gives me an idea where to start.