Rebuilding The Hydraulic System on A TerraTrac Crawler

[Iplayfarmer]

The final installment of this progress report is the installation of the valve and the lift cylinders. Once again, many of the components for this hydraulic re-build are coming from an old Jacobsen reel mower. The valve is no exception. It took a little imagination and a lot of clamps, etc., but I got the valve welded to a plate in such a way that It mounts cleanly on the loader frame. It bolts on, so I can remove it if needed. I'm only using two of the three cylinders for now, but if I succeed in acquiring or fabricating a 6-way blade for this crawler, I'll need the third spool.

I bought the double acting lift cylinders from a company I discovered on ebay. The front of the cylinder mounted up nicely, but the back was wider than the existing mounts. I passed the point of no return on this project when I cut the old mounting brackets and welded new pieces on to make the new cylinder fit. There's no going back now.

At present I am debating through the "what tank do I use" dilemma. I can get the 6 gallons that I need (pump is rated for 6gpm) by combining a little 3 gallon tank that I have with the internal capacity of the loader frame that was part of the original system. Or, I can use the 13 gallon tank from the Jacobsen mower. The Jacobsen tank would have to mount behind the seat and hang a little out the back. I know that the large tank is more likely to perform well, but I'm not sure I want the look of a tank hanging off the back of the mower. I'd love to hear opinions.

Once I sort out the tank dilemma I get to go through all of my hoses and see if I have the lengths that I need.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Question: How do I tell what direction the flow should be on a hydraulic fluid filter housing? I have an old housing from the Jacobsen mower, but I don't see any arrow to indicate flow direction.

 

[Tinhack]

Question: How do I tell what direction the flow should be on a hydraulic fluid filter housing? I have an old housing from the Jacobsen mower, but I don't see any arrow to indicate flow direction.

I believe the center is typically the output (from filter). The filter takes the dirty oil in on the sides since the pleating surface area is larger. If you have a loose filter housing, put your finger in through a hole. If your can see your finger, that's the input side.

The output side is usually the filter threaded post. You could also blow air in that to find which side port is output.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

I believe the center is typically the output (from filter). The filter takes the dirty oil in on the sides since the pleating surface area is larger. If you have a loose filter housing, put your finger in through a hole. If your can see your finger, that's the input side.

The output side is usually the filter threaded post. You could also blow air in that to find which side port is output.

Thanks. I can see from the inside which goes to the center and which goes to the outer surfaces of the filter. This helps.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Now that I have the filter thing figured out, does anyone have some good advice for cleaning out the lines, valve, etc.? The old donor machine sat for a lot of years, and I want to flush the lines somehow before I connect them to the new pump. Is this something that diesel fuel would be good for? Is there some kind of cheap little pump that would do good?

 

[Peter 315]

You can use diesel fuel and a drill pump......http://https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-Drill-Pump-Kit-PUP63-HD/204667248

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Here's a bit of an update on this project. I went a little less intense with cleaning the lines, and I just use compressed air and a rag to get the bulk of the debris. I am hoping that anything I missed gets caught by the filter and the screen in the tank.

I have used about $100 worth of adapters so far, and I think have all that I need. All of my fittings are ORB and all of my hoses are O-ring face seal. There are three fittings that I can't get locally, and I have ordered them from fittingsandadapters.com. I have never used them before, but they looked legitimate. I was satisfied with their system of organizing things in a way that was easy for me to find what I needed.

Call it luck or call it providence, but I used up every 1/2" hose that I could pull off the old mower, and I had exactly what I needed. It was a bit like playing "Go Fish" to arrange hoses where everything would work, but in the end I'm happy with how stuff is layed out. I'm still waiting on those last few adapters before I can start the machine and see if anything I have done actually works.

One problem I did identify without running the machine is that the old valve placement would have been uncomfortably close to the lift cylinders at full height. I decided to play it safe and just re-oriented the valve horizontally rather than vertically. I'll likely heat and bend the valve handles at a later date to get them pointing up. I don't know if there's any advantage to the handles pointing up, but it's what I'm used to on my other tractor.

I've attached a few pictures to show the current progress. Unfortunately it seems like there is never a good way to route hydraulic hoses without thinks looking like chaos.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

This is a follow up for the record about fittingsandadapters.com... I think they are out of business. The website is super helpful with resources for finding the right sizes of hose and fitting, but there is no one on the other end whether it be via e-mail, phone, or chat. My credit card showed a pending charge for a few days, but it was never actually charged. I got the email saying "thank you for the order", but no shipping email. Multiple attempts to contact the business have failed. It's too bad because it looks like someone with some genuine knowledge and experience set it up.

I'm not out any money, just time waiting for nothing to come. I finally went to a different local shop who suggested using a few adapters in combination to get me to the setup I need.

The crawler is now fully reassembled for test fit. Now I will probably spend some time going back through the hoses and doing an extra clean on them to minimize the potential for contaminants in the system as much as I can.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

It seems like I have lost most of the audience on this thread, but I'm posting an update to my update about fittingsandadapters.com. 11 days after the initial order was placed, and after multiple attempts to contact them via chat, email, and phone; I received an email saying that my order shipped. My card was billed, and the parts that I no longer need arrived. When I got the email saying my order shipped, I tried again to contact them, but I was not surprised when I received no response. I mailed them a letter expressing my disappointment. I cannot recommend doing business with them.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

While I'm in here ranting about the fittings supplier, I should probably post an update on the project...

The valve that I scavenged off of the mower has some interesting float functions that don't work for a loader. The lift spool floats up (i.e. the valve will produce down pressure, but won't hold it), and the curl cylinder floats down. I also was only getting about 3 gpm, and the lift cylinders were VERY shaky on the down stroke.

I upgraded my suction line from 1/2" to 3/4", and this increased my flow significantly. I also purchased a cheap eBay valve to go with my cheap eBay cylinders. I'm getting 6 gpm now, and the loader functions like it should. The new valve eliminated the shaky down stroke of the lift cylinders.

At some point in the future I will probably upgrade my curl hoses to 1/2" to match the rest of the system. I have smaller lines there right now. The speed of the cylinder is fine, but I can hear the engine bog down when I run that spool, telling me that the restriction from the smaller lines is too much.

I still have little incidental stuff to do, like strap my tank down and zip tie the hoses to each other and to frame pieces where I can. But, in general, I'm considering this project successfully completed.