FEL bucket not staying in place

chanceu · Jun 5, 2006

Gotta say I'm surprised...I was a bit skeptical that something so simple and that didn't look broken, could've been broken.

I got the parts today, removed the old ones, cleaned the seat, put the new parts in, and everything worked great.

I raised the bucket about 1" off the ground while I bolted on the grapple bracket and attached the grapple, including putting my weight in the bucket. I even bounced up and down so the bucket hit the ground and when I stepped out, it was still an 1" off the ground.

Then I took a 96 gallon garbage can (about 250# including the grapple) to the end of a 600 ft. not so smooth gravel driveway and everything stayed where I put it.

I know it isn't guaranteed, but out of curiosity, when I shut it down, I left the bucket raised a little just to see what happened.

chanceu · Jun 5, 2006

Gotta say I'm surprised...I was a bit skeptical that something so simple and that didn't look broken, could've been broken.

I got the parts today, removed the old ones, cleaned the seat, put the new parts in, and everything worked great.

I raised the bucket about 1" off the ground while I bolted on the grapple bracket and attached the grapple, including putting my weight in the bucket. I even bounced up and down so the bucket hit the ground and when I stepped out, it was still an 1" off the ground.

Then I took a 96 gallon garbage can (about 250# including the grapple) to the end of a 600 ft. not so smooth gravel driveway and everything stayed where I put it.

I know it isn't guaranteed, but out of curiosity, when I shut it down, I left the bucket raised a little just to see what happened.

MadReferee · Jun 6, 2006

Any time a spring or o-ring is involved they don't have to be "broken" to be failing. I am glad the replacement load check parts cured your problem.

MadReferee · Jun 6, 2006

Any time a spring or o-ring is involved they don't have to be "broken" to be failing. I am glad the replacement load check parts cured your problem.

chanceu · Dec 1, 2006

It took almost 4 weeks, but they finally fixed it.

After 2 1/2 weeks I called and the dealer said they couldn't find anything wrong with it. The service manager told me someone had done some digging with it and didn't see a problem and maybe the seals finally seated.

Since there was no problem when I got the tractor, then there was a problem, then there didn't seem to be a problem any longer, I asked if it was common for seals to seat, unseat, then seat again. That was a partly a smarta** question and partly not. I don't have that much experience with hydraulics, so I didn't know if it was common, but I doubted it.

I think my question sparked something because he called back to tell me that put in an "assist" to NH. NH told them to check one of the seals in the cylinders and sure enough they found a small cut in at least one. It turned out to be covered under warranty, so I didn't ask how many cylinders they had to repair and I didn't get any paperwork.

I knew they had fixed it when I pulled up in the yard because the bucket was curled in a way that wouldn't have stayed for more than a minute when it was broken. I also left the bucket off the ground about an inch last night when I brought it home and it is still there today.