Slight hydraulic leak

[swampvol]

I noticed that I am loosing a small amount of fluid at the connector on my fel cylinder. I tried to tighten the connector, and it is as tight as it gets. I think the threads just need to be re-wrapped with teflon tape.

Is there a trick to backing out the connector and not loosing any hydraulic fluid? Do I just move the fel's joystick around with the engine off to release the pressure?

Thanks.

[JerryG]

After the tractor is turned off the pressure goes away. Just take it off and rewrap or put some pipe dope on the threads. A lot of members don't like tape but that is all that I will use. You do need to make sure that the tape doesn't overlap the end of the fitting. You shouldn't lose any fluid.

[swampvol]

Sounds easy enough.

Thanks Jerry.

[BrianR]

Also, you might want to check for small peices of metal shavings, or debris in the shutoff inside of the hydraulic coupling. After removing the FEL on my BX2200 (2nd year of owning it), I spewed out a gallon of hydraulic fluid in my yard while mowing at dusk. The only reason I noticed it was the front right tire was wet from fluid splashing on it.

I removed the fitting, it just threads on to the metal line on the tractor, and cleaned it out. Looked like a peice of metal from when the lines were cut to size. Just a small curled peice of cadmium clad steel shaving.

Now I get in the habit of pushing in the little shutoff valve a couple of times while the tractor is not running, just to make sure that it is sealed good. It took the grass a year to recover from the 200 ft line of hydraulic oil!