Bleeding the Hydraulics

[Bill80401]

I've got a Dig-It M2008 backhoe/loader, and I just got done tearing down the entire hydraulic system and cleaning it out. I removed every cylinder and opened them up, inspected and cleaned them, and blew out every line with an air compressor ...

Now I'm putting it all back together, and I'm wondering how do I bleed all the air out of the system ??

.. I'm thinking I can probably 'pre-load' the cylinders a bit by attaching rubber tube(s) to the line inlets and letting them run right into a jug of hydraulic fluid and (manually) pumping them up that way (much like self bleeding a cars brake system) ... ?? .... then I can cap them off until I have them installed and I'm ready to throw the lines on them ..

The lines I won't be able to prime (unless someone has a trick for that) ...


Also, they stopped producing these Dig-Its a while back, so parts are an effort to find. So far everything I've had to do to it I've managed 'off the shelf' matching with other stuff, but it would be nice to find a parts dealer that has the specific stuff ................. anybody got any leads ?? ..

 

[Leejohn]

If all the fluid is out all you have to do is leave rod end hose off and run cyls. out until they are all way out. Then run the in lever just long enough until fluid comes out of the hose end then hook it up. If there are 2 cyls. like the loader cyls. you would do both at the same time in pairs. You would do each part of the system until they are all done.