Thanks for the replies .
I finally got a chance to do some other tests on my tractor, and I also picked up some gauges, and fittings to check out some things on my hyd system .
One of the first things I did was try lifting a known weight with the loader
I had some large steel plates , that I was able to calculate the weight of , plus some smaller plates that I was actually able to weigh
Note . that after I did this I had someone send me some owners manual info that listed the capacity of the loader as 700 lbs.
With 945 lbs in the bucket , it will lift it but it is working hard , you can tell it is over loaded . (I did NOT try to lift it to full height , just a foot or so off the ground )
800 lbs lifted quite a bit easier , and with the one large 650 lb weight , the loaded lifted pretty easy.
I left the 650 lb weight raised about 2 foot off the ground , it drifted down about 1 1/2 -2 inchs in 10 minutes or so .
There is a (double) relief valve mounted on the loader , that is set at 1075 psi (stamped in the valve assembly) one each for the lines that raise , and lower the boom .
I hooked up a 3000 psi gauge to the circuit that raised the loader arms and it read around 1100 psi
When I hooked it up to the circuit that lowers the boom it read only 900 psi
IN my original post , part of my concern was why the loader would not lift the front of the tractor off the ground .
I switched the hoses around (hooked up the "lowering" line to the 1100 psi relief ) and it lifted the front with no problem at all .
So I am guessing that the relief is the problem .
It is not important enough for me to worry a lot about it , but can the relief valves be "adjusted " ?
I thought I read somewhere about adding shims to some types to change the relief settings.
I am still not sure why , when I lay the bucket flat on the ground , and roll it forward to the dump position , that it pushes up on the loader arms .
Is it maybe overpowering the relief that is only working at 900 psi instead of 1100 ?
Or could it be as cylinder or valve leaking by .
One other test I did was to try to check (not sure if it did it correctly ) for the lift cylinders leaking by .
I lowered the boom all the way , to empty as much oil as I could out of the end of the cylinder that raises the boom , I disconnected the line on that side , capped it , and hooked up my pressure gauge to the cylinder .
I then tried lowering the cylinder further. (it was already all the way down ) , my thought was that if the seals were leaking by it would show up as pressure on the lift side of the cylinder .
I checked both cylinders this way and neither showed any pressure , so unless my method is wrong (it might be ) I think the cylinder are ok .
Don't know if any of the above makes sense at all LOL but if it does , looking for comments .
thanks again for all the help and suggestions .
Joe s