Branson 4520C Joystick Repair

[dhattaway]

So, I was out moving dirt with my FEL and the joystick came off in my hand. Completely disconnected, just hanging on by the boot. I managed to move the bucket enough to be able to drive the tractor back to the house and started looking to see what was wrong.
I pulled the cover and the boot and found this:


The piece of pot metal crap that they are using for the joystick valve selector broke off where the stick was attached.
Branson doesn't sell the part but they do have the whole joystick assembly for about $500.00. That's ridiculous so I did some research and found this on ebay and took a chance:


Too late, I found this which is the only part I needed:


But I can't complain since I saved over $400.00 anyway. Works great!

So here's what I did to change it out;

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Very interesting. Thanks for the write up and pictures.

 

[Branson Bob]

Excellent stuff dhattaway!

Thanks for the detailed photos and description. I was expecting to see 4... "slots?" for the 4 functions. It didn't occur to me that because we're only dealing with 2 planes (left-right, forward-backward) that you can kills 2 birds with 1 stone on the functions. From your photo it now makes sense to me because there are times where I'm feeling around for the proper function and I wonder if I'm in the right spot. In other words sometimes when I'm feeling for 6 o'clock (raise loader) I'm not sure if I'm in 6 o'clock or 9 o'clock (curl). This is usually when I'm operating the loader controls from outside the operator station (I know, I know). At those times it sometimes feels like it's in 7:30 position.

 

[ericm979]

I should probably lube that triangle piece periodically, and maybe get one as a spare since they are hard to find.

 

[Cougsfan]

Good writeup dhattaway. I had one of my cable ends come uncrimped when my tractor was new. Under warranty, Branson sent me an entire Joystick/cable set up. I thought that odd when all I needed was a cable. When you tell me they want $500 (!!!) for that set up, I find it even odder. Changing a cable is fairly difficult as they have a very complicated unintuitive manner of making the connection at the bottom at the control valve, and it is in a hard to get to location. Adjusting the cable is even less intuitive.

 

[dhattaway]

I guess they don't stock the individual pieces of the assembly. Probably just buy the assemblies in bulk. So we have to do lots of research to find the same parts from other sources.

 

[Asteral]

so i can answer at least as to why Branson doesn't have those parts available separately, it boils down to the company branson gets the valves and joysticks from,( they have other companies do this to them as well) they simply won't sell Branson the parts separately and because of this branson cant sell them to customers, as dumb as it is that is why they only have full assemblies for certain things like the joystick assemblies, the tie rod ends as well if you need just the rubber boot for them you have to order the whole stupid assembly to get one( i'm trying to source this from elsewhere but i haven't had much luck yet),there are few others like this but those are what i remember off the top of my head.