B 26 backhoe running slower and slower

[Gary Fowler]

I'm not clear on which way your controls are set up currently? It seems to me you figure, by bringing both controls back simultaneously and all the way back it should pull the grade you want. That's not going to happen. You may have to pull one lever back a tad more than the other and so on. Takes practice to get the feel of the controls to make them do what you want. IMO The best way is stick with what your most use too. I had to switch my dipper and boom to Cat style (boom right, dipper left) controls. Just not at all use to Kubota contols.

QUOTE]
I agree to an extent, but the way I have it set up now, the hydraulics are balanced so that they both move more or less in syncronous movement. Maybe have to adjust a bit on the levers if resistance is felt but by and large, full flow to each moves them just the right amount to bring them back level without a lot of finessing.

By the way, I have over 140 hours of use and 8 months of ownership with this backhoe prior to the mechanics screwing it up. I dont consider that a beginner and am quiet capable of using it to its fullest. I can pick up a cup sized rock with it by using the thumb and place it in a glass plate without breaking either the rock or the plate. I am not new to hydraulics or tractors having used them all my life, just not backhoes. I have also operated hydraulic cranes (cherry pickers to some of you) so I know a bit about finesse in movement of hydraulics, but like you said, when you are used to one type, (I guess mine is now excavator style) trying to use the other is really hard. I dont want to relearn this machine so I put it back like it was. I under stand why I had to shift the hoses from left to righ, but dont understand why I had to move the top to bottom and bottom to top. Just switching the control to different levers didnt work, but moving the hoses top to bottom and bottom to top made it back right.

 

[rmk700]

So when you swithed boom and dipper controls you moved a total of 4 hoses? That's how many I moved, 2 hoses per each control valve.

 

[Carl Bert]

No not split between two levers. The left lever works the dipper and the right works the boom which is just opposite the Kubota setup but it is the way I learned. The previous owner said it is set up to operate like a Case backhoe. I have never operated any backhoes before this one, so once I figured out what worked what it became a natural thing to do without really thinking about it. So when the mechanics screwed everything around, nothing would move in the direction that I wanted it to. Even when I got it in position to dig, if I pulled both levers like normal, it wouldnt dig, it would jump up (boom up too high, dipper too low etc, just wasnt coordinated in the movements like it should be.
With it the other way, I couldnt make it work to save my life. NOW, It still works the same way, push to extend the hoe and pull to bring it back but now it works correctly when digging in that after it is set in position, I pull both levers full back and the hoe comes back evenly with no erratic movements causing me to have to adjust boom up or down, kinda like the poster who asked about float position which it doesnt have by the way.
I dont know if it makes reading sense, but basically with it set up now, say that you are digging a ditch and want it 2 feet deep and you are attempting to take it down in 3" increments. Now I insert the hoe 3" below the grade, pull back on both levers full stop and the bucket stays at the predetermined hight, I just have to adjust the bucket level so it stays flat, as it comes closer to me it tends to curl up which is ok for digging in the beginning as you want the concave bottom contour. When you get to the depth that you want, you have to pull both levers back full and kind of bump the bucket control a bit as you come in toward the tractor so it stays flat and keeps the ditch bottom level.
It all depends on how you learned and the auto-response command our brains send, it is similar to driving a British car on a British road when you have always driven in America. You can relearn it but you have to relearn the whole schematic, shift with the left rather than the right, drive on the left rather than the right etc. Much of what you do when operating machinery, after you are familiar with it and with several hours under your belt, is automatic responses. You dont think about it consciously to turn the wheel to stay on your side of the road, it is autoresponse, so I just couldnt break the auto response impulse to pull one lever when my brain was telling me that the other one actually moved the darn boom or stick or whatever.

Ok I see what you're saying. So basically all the lever functions are the same, just on opposite sides. I'm not sure how that helped correct the erratic movements, but as they say, if it aint broke don't fix it. I definitely know what you're saying about once getting used to the controls a certain way, its very hard to relearn it any other way. Why would anyone even want to? I completely agree with setting it up the way you are comfortable, that leaves less room for error. Glad it all worked out for you.

 

[Gary Fowler]

So when you swithed boom and dipper controls you moved a total of 4 hoses? That's how many I moved, 2 hoses per each control valve.

Yes, I moved 4 hoses. At first I thought that I would just swap them back left side to right side which I did but it still worked backward from what I was used to. I thought heck maybe I mixed them up somehow and ended up putting the same ones back in the same spot, so I switched them back and still no luck. Then I was careful and switched them again but still didnt work right when digging. Working the levers everything went the right direction but it still didnt work the same. Finally it came to me in my sleep about maybe the swapped the top to bottom so I went out the next day swapped sides and this time put the left top hose on the bottom right valve and then swapped the right lever hoses the same way. Behold, it worked as I remembered.

 

[missingstexas]

Yes, I moved 4 hoses. At first I thought that I would just swap them back left side to right side which I did but it still worked backward from what I was used to. I thought heck maybe I mixed them up somehow and ended up putting the same ones back in the same spot, so I switched them back and still no luck. Then I was careful and switched them again but still didnt work right when digging. Working the levers everything went the right direction but it still didnt work the same. Finally it came to me in my sleep about maybe the swapped the top to bottom so I went out the next day swapped sides and this time put the left top hose on the bottom right valve and then swapped the right lever hoses the same way. Behold, it worked as I remembered.

So I've been AWOL and just saw this thread Gary. I hope you've had luck getting this straight. I know NOTHING about hydraulics or backhoe operation other than the maybe 60 or so hours I operated that machine and I obviously didn't make any changes to the setup it had when I bought it. The original owner said he had our Kubota dealer swap those controls over because that's the way he was used to them. Man, I sure hope you get a solution (an preferably an inexpensive one at that)... Let us know.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I got it back to where I can work it, maybe it is the same. I used it to dig out some stumps and dig up a whole bunch of pine trees and stumps that we had cleared off the fence line right of way. Some of the tree we had sawn off a couple inches above ground level, so I went in and dug up all that I could find then cleared all the saw briars and weeds as far back into the woods as I could without damaging any more trees. Lots of dead wood laying around so I piled it all up so we have a pretty good fire break down the fence should something get loose in the woods. The BH is still slow and a lot weaker than when I got it, but I have decided to wait till warmer weather to do anything more with it. I did finally find the relief valve (you really need to take off the right tire and jack it way up in the air to get to it. I need to find another dealer that at least has the book on a B26 as Timberline didn't even have the service guidelines on it in their shop and finally just said, they are all the same so use the B 2630 model guidelines. I was asking about all the 200 hour service filters and such that I needed and that was all they could provide. When I got home, the B26 service intervals were the same so I suppose they were right, but when they called to ask what year it was, I knew they didn't have it in there system or they could have found the year via the serial numbers.

 

[missingstexas]

Wow, I hope it's not serious.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I think somehow that the Relief valve pressure got lower and lower over time for some reason and it is bypassing which is causing the oil to get hotter than normal also. I just need to find a dealer around here with some B26 expertise. I really haven't even been looking at it since I got it back to running right having finally got the hoses back in the right positions. Come spring, I will look at it more seriously.

 

[workinallthetime]

Gary,
got a question for you, this may seem way out in left field but have you checked your fuel filter for water or to see if it's stoped up? i scaned through all of this and dont see that you said anything about engine rpm's.
while spending the day at a buddy's digging a french drain i noticed my b3030 BH seemed to get weeker and weeker, i stoped digging and drove around the yard, it was then that i noticed i was unable to maintain higher rpm's. I went into full freak out mode thinking of all the worst things it could be. When i got home i walked in the house told my cfo the tractor was jacked up. i went into a rant and all she said was "ever put the filter thing on you forgot and left in the kitchen for a month?" I pulled a black fuel filter off that weighed 4 times as much as the new one, BH has worked great ever since.

 

[J_J]

Just checking back in to see if you had checked the relief pressures and adjusted all the valves. They should all be equal.

My Case BH has restrictors in some circuits, and if your machine has them, and you switch hoses, the restrictors are not doing the job intended.