HCJ
Silver Member
I picked up my new FEL with a grapple. It has a WRLong electric over hydraulic valve. My dealer installed it and the service was pretty poor! That's another story. When they connected the grapple and quick connects for the first time, the grapple would open but not close. While I watched, the installer fiddled with the cylinder that the electical switch obviously controls. Sorry, but I don't know the name of this part. It has two hexagonal plastic caps, one on top and one on the bottom, with a small spring loaded piston in the center. It started working. I trailered it back 30 miles to my place, cranked it up and of course, it didn't work. So with all my knowledge, I did what he did, compressed the little valve on the top of the cylinder, removed the cap, spring, small piston, and then put it back together. Amazingly it worked perfectly all day. The next day, same thing, didn't work, cursed and fiddled with it and it started working. I am not sure if the cursing or my mechanical skills fixed it. Not wanting to trailer this back to my dealer, where they don't seem to know much more than I do, can somebody explain to me the workings of this electric valve, name it for me so I don't seem so stupid, and tell me how to fix it properly. And why does my pressing on the spring and disassembly of whatever I disassembled fix it, although for only one day? Sorry I have no pix, but surely someone knows what I am talking about. The cylindrical part is obviously the electric valve that diverts fluid to open and close the grapple. The problem is always closing it, in other words the grapple is stuck open. The top spring seems to be the one faulty.