Ok.. did a part of the 50 hr service tonight so I installed the cavitation fix at the same time.
First impression: it's fugly! (see pictures)
It kind sticks out a few inches from where the male quick coupler connects to the tractor. Notwithstanding the dubious appearance, I hoped on the tractor and looked for heavy stuff to lift and dump.. this didn't take long in my yard!
I set the needle valve at approx 50% to see what it did to the responsiveness of the loader when I curled and uncurled. While dumping a heavy load quickly I did notice that the quick dump feature didn't work anymore (don't know if this actually a documented feature, or if it's a condition of the hydraulics under the strain of a heavy load being dumped). The uncurl motion seemed to be a quick, fluid, steady action, just like the curl motion. I timed the curl and uncurl at full RPM and got a count of 5 seconds on the curl and a count of 4 seconds on the uncurl. After a few heavy dumps, I tried to recreate the limp bucket syndrone/delay on the curl but could NOT. woo hoo!!! No more cavitation!!
So I experimented with the needle valve setting a little. I opened the needle valve up 100% open to see what affect that would have on the speed of the curl/uncurl and if the cavitation problem would re-appear. After much lifting and dumping, I honestly couldn't tell the difference between the 50% setting and the 100% setting (5 seconds curl and 4 seconds uncurl) So it seems that just having the extra fittings and the needle valve installed was enough to slow down the flow out the rod end of the cylinder. Even at 100% open, I could not recreate the cavitation problem (limp bucket/delay on the uncurl)
Second impression: it worked!
Verdict: The jury is still out on this one. I don't like the way the valve sticks out. I'll try it out for a while and see if I ever knock into it as I hop on from that side of the tractor. I may also to talk to my dealer to see if I can get the right size fittings to install the vallve up along the loader arm instead. I'll also see if I notice a big difference with not having the cavitation problem recurring again when I do loader work.
Has anyone else installed this fix with the 200CX loader? We'd all love to hear your impressions.
Regards,
GordNovo
