'02 Jinma JM 354 Steering Issues

bjr · May 10, 2013

Last nite, After mowing the neighbors pasture, I was heading home on the street and the steering wouldn't respond. I mean the steering wheel turned as usual but the front tires did not respond. A couple of months ago I put end joints on the steering cylinder had checked the tie rod ends and all are operational then. When I got home, driving very carefully, I checked all joints and linkages and everything seems fine. I'm thinking some oring or bypass valve spring somewhere in the steering hydraulics broke. Any help will be appreciated. Where should I start trouble shooting? bjr

Affordable · May 10, 2013

Sounds like you are low on hydraulic fluid in the front tank by the radiator, or bad steering pump, cylinder bypassing.Start with checking the fluid

Tommy
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Rich Waugh · May 10, 2013

Yeah, what Tommy said. Check the fluid reservoir in front of the radiator first. If that is full, then disconnect the steering cylinder at the Pittman arm end and try turning the steering wheel. If the cylinder now operates, it is probably bypassing fluid and needs to be rebuilt. If it doesn't operate at all, disconnect the hydraulic hose that runs from the steering pump to the steering motor and place it in a bucket then start the engine. If the pump is good it will pump fluid into the bucket; if no fluid, the pump is possibly bad. The least likely thing to go wrong is the steering motor failing, but it can happen. Just not as often as the cylinder bypassing or the pump going bad.

lildobr · May 11, 2013

BJR, My Dad had a problem with his foton 904 steering. It had a small leak at a hose clamp. I don't know if it ran too low on fluid or sucked air in at the leak, but we figured out after tightening the clamp up, that the system had air in it. I bled the air out with the tractor running at idle I loosened the hydraulic lines going to the steering cyclender till I had a steady small stream of oil then tighten them up. Almost immediately it began to work like it should again. Hey its worth a try before going thru all the other work. Lildobr

bjr · Jun 3, 2013

Well a little update. I got the seal kit from Ranch hand, installed and promptly blew the oring on the rod seal, the outer diameter oring. I also had a stuck bypass plunger valve on the pump. Removed pump cleaned bypass and reassembled. I was able to replace oring by removing rod end ball joint and unscrewing the packing nut. I didn't have remove the whole cylinder this way. Finally reassemble all and filled with new oil and it operating just fine, now. bjr