BX22 4-way valve or 3-way?

[rlw]

If you don't think you'll ever want to add the snowblower, broom, or front blade to your tractor then keep the 3-way - otherwise trade it out now.
I didn't think I'd ever what any of the front attachments when I bought mine, but I was wrong. About 6 months after purchase, I decided to add the front blade and broom. Fortunately, my dealer still let me trade for the price difference.

The following is a write-up by another poster describing the difference between the 3 & 4 way valves. It was written up over a year ago.
The 3 position valve and the 4 position valve, both have what is known as a regenerative circuit built into the bucket dump circuit.

First let me explain what "regen" is and why.

When dumping a loaded bucket (with a good old fashioned loader control valve) the weight of the material in the bucket tends to pull the cylinders down faster than the hyd. fluid can fill the other side of the bucket cylinders. Therefore, an air pocket will develop in the cylinder causing the bucket to be a little "floppy" unless held against relief for a few seconds at the end of the dump cycle. Which creates an extra step if you want to back-drag, etc.

To solve this problem we now add a regenerative (regen) circuit into the dump function of the loader control valve.

What is "regen"? The dump function of the loader control valve applies hyd. "power" to both sides of the bucket cylinders at the same time. But Kubmech, how the heck is that going to work? Wont the cylinder just lock up and not move? No, because on one side of the cylinder the rod itself takes up space, decreasing the volume of the cylinder, on the other side of the cylinder piston there is, no rod, creating more volume. PSI=pounds per square inch, the more volume the more square inches to apply pounds, get it? O.K. so the back side of the cylinder overcomes the front side of the cyl. due to more volume and at the same time does not allow an air pocket to develop becuase of the added resistence of "hyd. power" to the front side of the cyl. allowing the cylinder to "stay tight" for subsequent operations. And as an added bonus it tends to dump faster due to the higher amount of flow/pressure to perform this operation. (Hence the "fast dump" mode the salesmen love to tell you about) In actuality the "fast dump"
mode is just derivative of the regen circuit.

Soooo..... What's the difference between 3-pos. and 4-pos. valves, besides about 35 bucks.

The 3-pos. valve has regen in the dump mode period. The problem with regen is if you want to add, say a snow plow, with power angle running off of the loader control valve, the power angle works off of single acting cylinders. With "hyd. power" being supplied to both sides of the cylinder, you will only be able to angle in one direction and that's it. (back to the whole volume-vs-psi thing again).

The 4-pos. valve has a detented position. When moving the control lever to the right, to dump (or power angle right in the case of the plow) if you choose the first detented position this is the non-regen position and will work just like the good old fashion loader control valve. If you apply a little more pressure on the control lever you will push past the detented position and move into the regen position. Thus, if you have the 4-pos. valve and want to avoid the floppy bucket syndrome you have to push full right to engage regen.

So the bottom line is; both the newer 3-pos. and 4-pos valves have the "fast dump" option. The difference is, do you want to add options to your front loader without having to add an aux valve to you're tractor or not?

 

[idrobnjak]

Ok, so to revive an old thread. I recently acquired a BX22 and it has a 4 position control valve, just found that out. Some hoses/disconnects were leaking on the loader so I decided instead of replacing three out of seven hoses, i'd replace all of them. Assuming I had a 3 way control valve i ordered from the dealer and got them yesterday. When I went to install this morning I realized hoses are all different and that is when i went back to schematic and realized i had a 4-way C/V. I know, dumb of me not to even click on that pic to compare earlier but here I am. After examining everything, I am wondering if I can just use these hoses off the 3-way valve to connect my 4-way valve onto the loader. There are 4 outlets in question off the C/V and the only difference i can tell is with 3-way they use one long hose to connect to rigid lines in the loader, with 4-way they use 2 shorter hoses for each line with quick disconnects on them, i guess if you want to connect something else onto the control valve. I really dont want to be down for another week - returning these hoses and getting new ones, so I am thinking i can just use the 3-way c/v hoses on mine and everything should be fine. Below are schematics for each off the kubota parts site. Let me know if I am crazy to do this. And i never plan to add snowblower, blade, broom in the front, and if i do, I can then order proper hoses and go back to the current setup.

3-way hose setup:


4-way hose setup:

 

[BeezFun]

so I am thinking i can just use the 3-way c/v hoses on mine and everything should be fine. Below are schematics for each off the kubota parts site. Let me know if I am crazy to do this. And i never plan to add snowblower, blade, broom in the front, and if i do, I can then order proper hoses and go back to the current setup.

Your loader can't know if it's connected by two short hoses or one long hose, so it will work fine. I think you're right, the 4-way hoses just allow for connection to some other implement whose connector terminates at a different location and with the opposite gender of fitting, so wouldn't fit the control valve connection.

 

[idrobnjak]

Ok, so my saga here continues. I got all the hoses hooked up and paid special attention to make sure I connected the right control valve outlet to the right color rigid hose on the loader as they were before. As I was doing this, some fluid leaked out from lines and my right cylinder compressed a bit (but not my left one) causing the loader to sit crooked so I couldn’t put the loader back onto frame properly. I figured, that is fine and I will just hook up hydraulics, run it and compress both cylinders all the way and then pull them back out. So my left cylinder was out while my right one had compressed a bit, I figured from some fluid leaking out while changing out the hoses. I finally got all the hoses and quick disconnects back together and got the tractor close and connected hydraulics and ran the tractor for a little while to get the pump running properly and pressure in the system up and hopefully work out any air out of the system (hopefully that is how that works?). Then using the lever I compressed both cylinders all the way in, motion to lower the loader arms. To my surprise when I pulled lever the other way (motion to raise the loader arms) to pull them both out, only my right cylinder is coming out, while my left one just sits there in the closed position. I still can’t get the loader onto the frame of the tractor because now the left one is all the way in and that is making the angle of the loader arms impossible to properly seat onto the frame. I am beyond frustrated, and regret not getting a new tractor to be out there doing the work I need to do instead of in the garage messing with it and troubleshooting in my very scarce free time. As always, this site and you people are a godsend and any help would be appreciated.
Could I have still made a mistake and connected something incorrectly to the loader control valve? I doubt it, but possible. The bucket dump and up motions work fine and my right cylinder does what it is supposed to, is there a separate hydraulic line to the left cylinder control? It doesn’t make sense to me since I would think same line would control both cylinders at the same time. So assuming I go back and check all the hose connections and everything is the way it was before, what would cause the cylinder to stay in the closed position? Fluid not getting in on that side or is something stuck inside of it? Obviously a rookie at all this.