How much should FEL bleed down slowly

[cooljoe00]

When I turn off my tractor sometimes I forget to lower the FEL arm back to the ground ~8inch. Irregardless in ~3hr it will be on the ground anyways. I conducted a few test I put the arms almost all the way up ~4days it was on the ground. I tried locking the FEL lever in place; still dropped. I lift the rear 3pt with a box-blade on it; that even dropped down. The tractor is off but I still though it should hold a lot better than this. The book says Bleed down is normal but how much is normal? Should I be sending this back in for yet another hydraulic problem? Thankfully I haven't seen any leaking out onto the ground; the fluid level isn't dropping from what I can see on the stick.

 

[Turbys_1700]

I don't know if my Workmaster leaks down or not. I always lower the FEL it to the floor in the shop when I put it up. I would expect some leak down is normal. How much is "normal" I have no idea. Perhaps others can chime in.

 

[Wagtail]

cooljoe00, this is just my own observation but the rate of bleed-down may have a bit to do with the 'age' of your hydraulic fluid. (the fluids 'quality' will definitely be a factor).

When my tractor first arrived, fresh from my dealership, I had to park it outside until my shed was built. I parked it with the FEL & bucket raised about 10". It took a couple of days to bleed down. Within a month the shed was built and the tractor had a home where I lower the FEL onto a couple of 4x4 blocks of wood. 8 months later I was over on a 'job' helping to bring in the hay crop which meant leaving the tractor there overnight. The FEL & bale-spikes had bled down by the time I arrived the next morning.

As long as the fluid is topped up and the implements don't come crashing down once you've shut the tractor down, you're good to go.

 

[k0ua]

All hydraulic control valves leak. It is a fact. Some leak more than others. Some other factors can be the temprature, and fluid consistency. But age of the valve will factor in to this. ALL hydraulic control valves leak. ALL. If your loader stays up 4 days from full height, you have one of the better ones. Think about it, think about the tolerances of the metal piston inside of a metal bore. Just how close can you machine the tolerances so that it can move in the bore, yet fluid will not escape around those tolerances. 4 days is not just "normal" it is "very high" normal.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

All hydraulic control valves leak. It is a fact. Some leak more than others. Some other factors can be the temprature, and fluid consistency. But age of the valve will factor in to this. ALL hydraulic control valves leak. ALL. If your loader stays up 4 days from full height, you have one of the better ones. Think about it, think about the tolerances of the metal piston inside of a metal bore. Just how close can you machine the tolerances so that it can move in the bore, yet fluid will not escape around those tolerances. 4 days is not just "normal" it is "very high" normal.

James you are correct, the Op's valve is on the very good end of the spectrum. 4 days is GREAT. I once had a customer that was complaining because he would have to readjust his hydraulic side link after 3 weeks of non usage. :shocked: In my mind, as long as the leak down does not affect day-day operation while you are operating the tractor, then you should be very satisfied.

Just my :2cents:

 

[PILOON]

Hey, they all leak a tad.
Mine will drop over about 5 mins but so what.
Usually I dump the FEL load B4 5 mins anyway and if not I simply bump up a tad.
Buddy spent $250. as he was frustrated about leak down, but that is his $$'s.

OK, I was using my FEL to raise loads to a construction project so I simply feathered the UP valve every so often. Big deal!
I just told the unloader guy to grab onto the bucket arms so as not to fall. An hour later and all the material was on site and I still have my leaky valves. LOL

 

[deere36]

Just asked John Deere tech this question, he said they don't work on anything unless it leaks more than an inch per hour.

 

[shui5612]

Most tractor valves will leak down. Personally on my yanmar it takes about a day to drop down 8 inches and on my deutz it takes maybe 3 days to drop the same foot or so. However the 3ph on the deutz barely has any leakdown. Takes a week to drop a couple of inches.

Changing the fluid will help and if you want to have 0 leakdown then you need to get electronic check valves that open when the valve is engaged and close when it's off. Basically this is what a lot of boom lifts have.

Weight and cylinder size all play a big factor in leak down. Essentially the higher the pressure that's put on the line and cylinder the higher the pressure the valve has to hold back. This pressure has to even out to 0 or tries to in the least. But say your 3ph which has large cylinders and you have a small weight on it then the leakdown should be a lot slower than it would if you had it at max capacity.

 

[oosik]

I always drop both the rear blade and grapple to the ground. The few times I've left them UP - over a two week period the 3-point did not drop any and the FEL dropped less 3". I think this is because the tractor, seals and fluids are all new (2009). However - both the rear blade @ 1000 lbs and the grapple @ 820 lbs are fairly heavy implements.

 

[boggen]

allis chalmers CA tractor. with disc on it. i gotta bump the valve every couple minutes, when i have disc raised up trying to drive were ever. disc just to heavy and sticks to far out, the extra bumps do not help any either.

ford TLB (tractor loader backhoe) 333c, FEL is for most part good, but the backhoe, it will drop around 6 inches or more pending on how much it is extended out from rear of tractor per hour.

when looking for the TLB i ended up getting, saw over half of them. raise the backhoe up, with tractor running, and you could physically see the backhoe dropping. *meh* that was way to much leakage, more so with tractor running. some of them you did not notice till after you turned unit off, and then over a few minutes you could see stuff dropping.

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never trust hydrualics to hold something up over extended time. to many spots for internal leaks to happen, and they do happen.