Curtis Blade-FEL Hyraulic

[scott3010]

I installed a Curtis Snow Blade on my L3010 FEL and used the Tilt and Dump hydraulics
to angle the blade. I can only angle one way with these controls and no return. Am I doing
something wrong or is it not possible to use the FEL hydraulics for this purpose?

Any help would be appreciated.
Fred

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I believe it has to do with the regenerative dump circuit or you could just have the hoses connected wrong.I'm not experienced enough to know but i figured id throw something out there cause no one else has.Did you buy it new? maybe curtis can help you. Mike

 

[Bird]

Fred, I was hoping someone who knew would answer you, but maybe they're like me; don't know how to explain without seeing what you have. It just sounds like a matter of hoses hooked up in the wrong place, but I really don't know.

Bird

 

[SteveV]

The valve is correct for either double or single acting cylinders, so check the connections again, bleed the air and look to see if the rollback/tilt cylinders are moving when you're trying to angle the blade! Mechanically lock them if they move or disconnect them from the hydraulic circuit.The regen wouldn't cause a problem. After that, it's a defective quick connect. Swap the hoses and see if it works the other way. SteveV /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[scott3010]

Thanks Mike-Bird & SteveV for your replies. Here is a list of all the things I tried to see
if I could find out what the problem was.
I made sure the cylinders and hoses didn’t have any air in them. I reversed the hoses and
couplings . I interchanged the connections on the Tilt and Dump connections then I could
angle in the opposite direction only. I connected the Blade hoses to the Raise and Lower
fittings on the FEL control and the Blade worked as it should (this should mean that the
problem is not with the Curtis Blade setup). Next I connected the Dump fitting to the
Raise cylinder and the Tilt fitting to the Lower cylinder, I could raise the bucket up this
way but I couldn’t lower the bucket with the Tilt control. The FEL works as it should
with the correct hook up. ( I cant see why the two cylinders on the Blade should be any
different than the double acting cylinder on the FEL).
Thanks Fred

 

[tractorman]

Unless you have a 4 position valve on your tractor, which was only available as a "remote mounted valve" on your LA481 Loader, you will have to mount an auxillary, single spool valve in order to use the angle cylinders on your Curtis Blade.

 

[SteveV]

A cylinder is a cylinder. If one works the other will too. It sounds like the quick coupler attached to the tilt/rollback valve side is bad or incompatible. Match the coupler sets by vintage and try again. Your test with the raise/lower on the tilt/rollback spool leads me to this conclusion. If the springs in the couplers aren't the same strength, the weak half won't unseat and threrefore won't pass oil. Tractorman has the end solution, but there is no reason the economy hookup can't work. SteveV /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[kubmech]

Fred, I'm a little late but here goes: It sounds like you have the regen circuit in your loader valve. The reason it will work with the loader and not the power angle on the plow is the plow power angle cylinder is a single acting cylinder. If you take notice on the plow you only have one hose connected
to the angle cylinder the other end is simply a vent. The best way to run your configuration is with an aux. valve as previously stated. The regen circuit on your loader valve provides hyd pressure to both sides of the cylinder on your loader (to prevent air accumulation during the dump cycle) the reason it works on the loader is the difference in displacement between the rod side versus the open barrel side of the loader cylinder. But can't work with a single acting cylinder set up such as the plow.

 

[SteveV]

/w3tcompact/icons/blush.gifSounds like your saying that a double acting cylinder is necessary because of the regen circuit and the single acting cylinder wouldn't work since the working area of the cylinder would be identical in both directions. Ok, now why doesn't the up/down of the FEL work when connected to the tilt/rollback spool (up/down uses double acting cylinders)? I'll agree the regen or rapid dump position will not work with single acting cylinders. Regen works by applying high pressure to both ports at the same time and relying on the difference in working area at each end of a double acting cylinder to perform. Now I'm going to go test my FEL tomorrow on the wrong spools to see what happens. SteveV

 

[scott3010]

Thanks Kubmech,
This sounds good, like SteveV I am going to retry using the Rollback & Dump controls on the Lift & Lowering cylinders again and make sure I hook up to the cylinders ends the same as the Rollback & Dump. The last time I did this I didn't pay attention to which end I hooked up to. If this is the answer then the Lift & Lowering should work ok using the Rollback & Dump control. I will post the results.