Does curl/ dump have its own relief?
Evidentally the check valves are good and it is cycling oil if the bucket moves under load.
One thought, blown cyl packing.
Leave lift hose in, remove dump hose, pressurize lift, see if oil blows out dump.
Remember dump lift swap depending on spool direction
adding some comments to Soundguy post....
was going to say pressure relief valve as well. maybe set to low or some how got adjusted wrong.
would assume need a dealer testing, due to needing of extra equipment to test max pressure relief settings.
i would more likely suspect max pressure relief, if levers / joystick was replaced from original that came with tractor, for the FEL.
for my machines and my hearing. when i hit pressure relief valves ((trying to lift something to much for example)) i generally here some sort of "whin" or "hissing sound" coming from the hyd valves were the pressure relief valves are located. sound is coming from hyd oil trying to pass through a really small hole as pressure relief valves begin to kick in.
i can get the backhoe pressure relief valves to kick in a lot, FEL on other hand can be a bit more difficult to get pressure relief valves to kick in. and generally requires me digging into undisturbed soil with the FEL, and/or trying to pry some stuff up with it.
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quote "One thought, blown cyl packing." internal seals inside one of the bucket cylinders, would be allowing oil to pass from one side to the other side. might also be something.
a full bucket of wet sand. and holding it up in air, and no creep / falling. is not the test for this. hyd oil has no place to go in the cylinder. the leak will more likely appear when joystick/levers are in use and actually trying to curl / uncurl the bucket.
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quick connects on hyd hoses. some times do not "seat correctly" when you put them together. undoing the quick connects and re-connecting, is an attempt to make a correct connection.
every try and hook something up to an air compressor quick connect. and the stupid thing will not seat correctly and blow out air around the quick connect? until ya pull air tool off and redo the pulling down on the quick connect and try again. same kinda thing for hyd hose quick connects. though hyd hose quick connects are more made, so hyd oil does not spray out, like an air quick connect does for your air compressor / air tools.