Arrghh! How bad is this likely to be?

[Pilot]

JD 770. Went over to the Grange to plow snow this morning. After a little while, the bucket speed slowed to snail speed for lift and tilt. Figured something was wrong, so I headed home. Stopped to pick up our newspaper at our driveway & could hear a high pitched whine. This can't be good. Also noticed the bucket was starting to tilt forward. Half way down the 1,200 ft driveway, I saw a 20 ft. long trail of greenish fluid in the snow. By the time I got to the barn, it wouldn't lift the bucket at all, nor would it tilt it. Still held up the rear blade.

I haven't looked at anything yet. I suspect the whine suggests I burned up the hydraulic pump. When I parked the tractor I didn't see anything dripping, but maybe it was already all gone.

Any ideas?

 

[atgreene]

Sounds like you ran it out of fluid. Where was the leak coming from? Try to repair the leak then refill and test. If you continued to run after the pump went dry you most likely destroyed the pump. Whenever you have a leak or noise shut the machine down and investigate. I'm sure you are kicking yourself now, but maybe some other will learn from your mistake.

Good luck.

 

[kennyd]

Definitely not enough info to diagnose...but sounds like a hose blew.

Refill with fresh fluid, start 'er up and see what happens...

 

[Pilot]

Yep, a hose blew.

Will get new hoses, fill it up & try it out.

What's kind of $$ are we talking about for a pump?

 

[atgreene]

You don't want to know. See if the new hose fixes it.

 

[AKfish]

You don't want to know. See if the new hose fixes it.

Major ditto!! That's like asking what the "little 'ol injector pump" costs!

Best of luck.

AKfish

 

[EddieWalker]

Hope the pump is fine, but if you have to replace it or rebuild it, be sure to start out with your dealer for a starting price. Surprisingly, they are sometimes the cheapest source for those types of engine parts. Once you get the replacement price and the rebuild it price, ask around to see if there's a reliable place that does rebuilds in your area. I found out about places like this for my hydraulics and my turbo from the mechanics and parts guy at the different dealers that I go to. They don't do all their own repairs and ofter send out specialty items to an expert who does them all the time. If this is the case, ask and they might share that information with you. Then you can go there and deal directly with the person who does the rebuild and often times, save money in the process.

Lastly, I would look online. In my experience, online sources are rarely the best priced place for these sort of items. If you can find the model that you need, it's almost always been cheaper from the dealer.

Good luck,
Eddie

 

[mfreund]

A lesson I learned in life.

If you think it broke SHUT IT OFF and take a look where you are. It is cheaper to fix it there than at your shop!!

 

[Pilot]

Eddie,

Thanks for your info.

FWIW, yes I should have shut it down. The kinds of things that went thru my mind were that I had no place to park it that wouldn't block the driveway (surrounded by forest), no place to work on it out of the weather--rain & snow was forecast for the whole 7 day forecast, I figured when I heard the whine that the pump was already toast, if I shut it down I wouldn't be able to move it as I expected the blade would drop on shutdown, which it always does and if I took off the blade to tow it with my pickup, we had a lot of snow on the driveway and the truck was barely able to plow thru it it as it was. So my mindset was to get it back to the barn. Probably not the best thinking, but those were things that were on my mind.

If it had been summer and off the driveway, I'm sure I would have shut it down.

 

[mfreund]

I lost a motor in my p/u truck the same way, too cold to walk, cannot be that bad. It is VERY hard to shut off a running vehicle to walk in the cold. It cannot hurt that much I told myself( I still ended up walking). Hopefully it did not hurt much, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!