Bush Hog M246 FEL Cylinders

602466 · Apr 29, 2009

I have a cylinder leaking for the third time. This is the ones that raise and lower the bucket. I have bought the seal kits and was thinking about doing it myself. Is this hard to do and do I need any special tools? What should I be looking for as I said it has been done twice before by professionals.

Is it me, am I too hard on the machine? The tractor only has less than 300 hours on it and mostly bush hogging hours. I have been pulling out fallen trees out of my woods with the FEL. Is this the cause. I now have a pole boom to drag them out.

Any help would be appreciated.

Wally

Eric_Phillips · Apr 30, 2009

Check the rod for pitting. If the rod is pitted you will be constantly changing seals.

602466 · May 1, 2009

Thanks, I will check it out.

Wally

jinman · May 1, 2009

You didn't say how fast the cylinders are leaking down. Since I see you have a TC40DA, I can tell you that my curl cylinders have leaked slightly since my tractor was new. I have the 16LA loader. I know of one other that does the same thing. It's not a big deal for me because I don't use my bucket as a scaffold platform. It is a bit frustrating at times when I have something on my bucket forks that I'm trying to finesse and the curl drops slowly. I have a neighbor who has a TC35A with less than 50 hours. It has the newer loader and does not drop. . . yet. I suspect that to stop this problem completely, you will probably have to replace the cylinders with something other than New Holland. However, if you find a solution, please let me know. It appears that your Bush Hog loader is no better than the factory loader. My cylinders are getting a little worse and I may have to rebuild them by the time I reach 2000 hours. I currently have 1500 hours.

602466 · May 1, 2009

I ordered the seal kit from Bush Hog this week. Hopefully that will do the job.

Thanks for the info!

Wally

Scotty370 · May 1, 2009

Eric-I don't have the pitting problem, (New loader), but just for future reference, could JB weld be used to correct pits? Polished with crocus cloth axially after application? ~S

Eric_Phillips · May 1, 2009

I don't think you can fix the pitting but I will let one of the more experienced people here answer that for you. Don't think new is going to protect you from pitting. Mine is only about three years old and I have pitting on one of my cylinders. I ordered a new cylinder and I am searching for possible inexpensive ways to fix the pitted rod. I think the only thing to do is replace it and I am still searching for those options. My local shop will manufacture a new rod out of high end rod for about twice the cost of the new cylinder. These are the consequences of our Walmart inspired values.

carpenter383 · May 1, 2009

I would think a boom pole would be better for dragging logs than the loader anyway. Of course the safety police will say either way is too dangerous and you should only use the drawbar. lol