Tractor is running, moving, and the front end loader articulates. Still have a good bit of work to do before I'd say that it's in usable condition, but we're pretty close. I was very pleased to drive it around yesterday under its own power. Getting the FEL back on with two people was a quite the ordeal, especially since I didn't mark the hydraulic lines and really have no experience with hydraulics other than a basic understanding of how it works.
Unfortunately, I don't have any pics or videos to show because I didn't have time to really get any. Maybe next weekend when I get my steering rod end replaced and can actually work it a little.
I do have a handful of questions that I haven't been able to figure out on my own, mainly surrounding the hydraulics. My tractor has three levers on the right side of the seat. One clearly controls the 3-point, and I think is described in the manual as a "rockshaft control valve". The other two are for the front end loader and are described in the manual as a "selective control valve" or SCV. There is also a screw in/out valve between your legs if you're sitting in the seat. Not knowing how the hydraulics work or remembering how the lines were hooked up, I flailed around for a bit and managed to get the 3-point to lift using a combination of the lever and the screw in valve under the seat between my legs. Likewise, we managed to get the lift circuit to work with the right hand SCV and the bucket circuit to work with the left hand SCV. We did have to open and close the screw in valve a couple times to make things function. Now, with that explained, I'm not 100% sure which SCV lever is supposed to go with which circuit or if that even matters. Likewise, I'm not sure that I have them correctly aligned or if they're backwards. I think I have at least the lift circuit reversed.
This picture shows the original seat pan. On the right are the two SCVs and the 3-point lever:
I haven't actually tried lifting any weight in the bucket or on the 3-point yet. The bucket action seemed weak and I figured I have some adjustment or tweaking to do.
Can someone explain to me how the hydraulics on this tractor are supposed to work, what the function of the screw in (open/close) valve is and which lever should be connected to which circuit?
Also, I'm slightly confused by my fuel filter assembly. I purchased a new assembly that looks identical to this:
My assumption is that the C<-->O designation depicts the lever being in the (O) open position in this picture and that to close the valve, you'd flip the lever 180 degrees to the (C) closed position. What I've found is that with the lever in the 12 o'clock position, that fuel flows freely while in the 3 o'clock or 6 o'clock (pictured) position fuel doesn't flow or only dribbles out. Am I missing something here? I'm hoping that the 12 o'clock position isn't a bypass or something that flows unfiltered fuel.
My second question regarding the fuel filter has to do with bleeding. After we had the tractor running, having bled the lines again, I came close to running it out of fuel. The filter bowl was previously full and drained down to about 1/3 full before I noticed, shut off the tractor, and added fuel to the tank. Upon restarting and running a bit, the filter bowl never refilled. I'm assuming I should have bled that using the screws at the top of the filter housing. Is that correct?
