Anybody blown or bent their curl cylinder(s), and how?

[RaydaKub]

There is a Facebook Kubota group. One member posted a rig made from 2x4s that he uses to skid his BX25 forward on the bucket edge, over the mmm rather than slide it in on the dolly wheels from the side. I suggested it was looking for a blown seal or bent ram and was told it won't hurt anything. Evidently this has been done by others with no skid, they just scrape it across the floor or ground. So I was just wondering if anybody has damaged the curl cylinder and how did you do it? I would point back at this thread in reply to the message.

What stories do you have gentlemen?

 

[JWR]

Everything is opinion, right ? But I do not think you can blow a curl cylinder or hurt the ram that way. I have a BX2200 with the LA211 loader, a B2150 with a 3rd party loader and an 81hp MF with a MF DL250 loader. I have used all 3 of the loaders many times to lift the front of the tractor for various reasons. Sometimes digging in hard soil both fwd and reverse with the full weight of the front half of the tractor on the bucket tip (which is NOT recommended.) I admit that once I put so much pressure on the large MF (preparing a building site) that I split a steel hydraulic line on the loader wide open and sprayed myself with hot hydraulic fluid. But it did nothing to the cylinder or the ram. My thought is that scooting the tractor along on 2x4s on the bucket with the front end up in the air is light work for that loader. In my experience the hydraulic cylinders (seals, rams, fittings) will stand more than the things around them. Some (most?) have excessive pressure relief valves, etc. too.

Picture of blown line attached below. It was nice and snug up against the loader frame before it blew...

View attachment 467421

 

[4570Man]

My buddy blew one. He was back dragging with a set of pallet forks all the way down.

 

[RaydaKub]

Here are 4 shots of the rig in use.
I could see how this would be a lot safer than the bare edge, but still strikes me as risky.

 

[pap71]

That is a BX, the curl cylinder is in the center of the bucket. It only has one cylinder and it is pretty big. I don't think that will hurt it.

 

[ch1ch2]

I bent a rod digging.
Had to replace both cylinders.

 

[bobmisi]

I bent one back dragging with my skeleton bucket when it caught a rock just right. It is not hard to do. I had it repaired at a shop that does hydraulic cylinder repairs and all is well. Cost was about 150 dollars.

 

[Grandad4]

Here are 4 shots of the rig in use.
I could see how this would be a lot safer than the bare edge, but still strikes me as risky.

If the boards slide easily across the floor, probably not too much risk of harm. Conversely, if there's a lot of friction (think of doing this on a gravel driveway, for example), the resistance to moving forward could be a problem, and if the bucket were tilted more vertical or past vertical, that would make it worse.

An improvement would be to use a dolly with casters instead of the 2x4's. Adding a couple of stop blocks to the dolly would prevent the bucket from sliding off.

 

[RaydaKub]

Conversely, if there's a lot of friction (think of doing this on a gravel driveway, for example), the resistance to moving forward could be a problem, and if the bucket were tilted more vertical or past vertical, that would make it worse.

That's pretty much why I started this thread. The rig in question would be better no doubt, but this was supposed to be an improvement to how he was doing it before, which was a bare edge to scrape along.

 

[Grandad4]

Not a whole lot of improvement, IMHO. I wouldn't be doing that with my equipment just because I couldn't be troubled to take time to adjust the casters on the mower deck. But it's his tractor to do with as he pleases.