Broken joystick actuator cable - TN70S

[mahlers]

Anyone out there know the part number for the cable assembly for a mid-mounted joystick/hydraulic valve setup? I've gone through the NH parts guide for hours, and they list several different possibilities, but no good description as to whether the cable is for the mid-mount or rear-mount assembly. My local NH dealer is also baffled. The closest one I could find lists the length to be 1650mm long - which is about ten inches longer than the one that came off the tractor.

Since they made the part of the cable assembly that attaches to the joystick out of plastic (dumb a$$es), I'll bet that I'm not the first one to have it break. I'm hoping someone out there knows what the part number might be.

Thanks in advance!!

 

[mahlers]

FYI - just in case someone else runs into the same problem, the part number is 47128615.

I thought this fix was going to be an easy one - just remove the covers to the joystick assembly, detach the joystick assembly, lift the boot, replace cable, and reattach to valve body. No so...

I'm sure some of the NH techs can empathize with this one - it was a nightmare job. There is no way to easily reattach the cable to the joystick without doing some serious close-quarter work. I liken it to working on a watch. There is an attachment pin that connects the actuator cable to the joystick, along with a curl-circuit hinge that doesn't have any logical way of removal. There's a hex key attached to the hinge, but all it does is rotate a pin around - it's not threaded. Turns out the hinge appears to be secured by a split ring - but I had a heck of a time getting a split-ring remover in there - absolutely no room, and there must be a special tool required. I ended up grabbing one of my 90 degree needle-nose pliers and taking a grinder and then a Dremel to it to make a tool that would fit. Then, when I did get a grip on the split ring by forcing the joystick into a weird position, the darn slip ring slipped off the 'custom made' remover and shot about twenty feet into the dirt someplace. Guess what - it is an odd metric size, and nobody in the world seemed to carry that particular size split ring... Probably a NH specific part...

In any event, I ended up inventing some jerryrig ways to put everything back together, and it seems to work OK again. Next time, I'm going to just see if I can order the whole joystick assembly with cables already attached. that would have been a couple hundred bucks more expensive than just the cable itself (which was about $100), but it would have saved me eight hours of frustration.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Thanks for the update. So far I have not heard of anyone else having this problem yet and the fact the NH parts guy you were dealing with was baffled also leads me to believe this is a first for him as well.

My TN just flipped 1200 hours and the joystick has held up great (knock on wood).

If someone else has this problem are you going to rent out your "new" pliers

 

[mojoinco]

Is there a way to pull the joystick and attach the cable on it, then mount it and attach the far end last? My Triumph has a reccomended fix with the carbs & throttle that way (specific order to make it easier). Might have to do this myself someday.

 

[KenPauling]

Hi! I had a similar experience with a broken throttle cable. The throttle cable broke at 20 hours and it took the mechanic 3+ hours of work to replace the cable! He had to completely disassemble the throttle mechanism, go underneath tractor and with my help weave a new cable through the under cab maze of wires and cables. Its a 2 man job and one better be an experienced mechanic. Something as simple as replacing a cable that absolutely shouldn't have broke even with 10,000 hours of use was a major undertaking. I am positive the manufactures either used the cheapest cables they could find or they have little or no quality control. Its a shame such a good tractor as the TN series is plagued by poor engineering and little quality control.

 

[mahlers]

Is there a way to pull the joystick and attach the cable on it, then mount it and attach the far end last? My Triumph has a reccomended fix with the carbs & throttle that way (specific order to make it easier). Might have to do this myself someday.

I'm sure there definitely is an order to the job, and I think I tried every conceivable one of them. The problem is that there is *just* enough space in there for the cables and hinges/springs to move around in normal operation, but not enough room to replace parts individually. When the piece of plastic that holds the cable assembly to the joystick base broke, there just was no easy way to get a new cable inserted and attached. I tried so many different ways and finally I just got so frustrated that I forced the heck out of it and banged on it with a plastic head hammer. The stupid coupling pin finally popped into its slot in the hinge assembly and also popped into plastic cable head assembly. That was after I had to jerry rig a split ring fastener into place to hold the curl-circuit hinge in place - which will likely pop off one of these days and render the thing inop again. I'm already looking for a spare complete joystick assembly to keep in reserve - no way I'm doing that job again. Way too frustrating.

 

[AndyMA]

Knock on wood too. My TN joystick is also holding up fine. I can see how tight it would be getting in there. Especially with my big hands. Might be a job for my tiny handed wife--

Andy