Kioti LK 3054 Power steering quit

[Nrowland]

I've owned a 99 LK3054 for about 2 months. I have been doing nothing but working on the thing. Started off with small leak of hydraulic fluid below clutch housing and found it to be a simple o-ring in the bottom of the powersteering unit. Too bad I had to have the tractor split to figure out the culprit first. Thought everything was fixed and used the tractor about 30 min when the power steering stopped. Could barely budge the thing. Decided to pull it in front of the garage by lifting the front with the loader and turning wheels when needed. About the time I made it to the garage hydro fluid was gushing out what looked like a port on the back underside of the starter. Anyone have any ideas. Has not been a very good experience with kioti thus far.

 

[mattman]

Do you have any pictures of the culprit???? were we can see the leak??

I would look at where the tractor was split in half.. Who did the work?? Something may not have been tightened up or a metal hydraulic line got a hole in it.. There is a lot of things that could cause the leak.


show us some pictures so we know right where the problem is..

 

[Nrowland]

Well I took the power steering unit out again yesterday. I knew that there was something wrong with it because it would not turn freely after linkage was disassembled. Turns out that the bottom side of the power steering casting has cracked and blew the retaining ring and wedged the cap that holds the bearing. The casting had been tig welded but has now split half that weld out and about 1-1/2" around the side. Does not look good. Also it since it was just pushing fluid threw it, the bell housing filled up with fluid and was coming out the drain in the starter. Does anyone have any suggestions for flushing the clutch with something to avoid splitting the tractor just to clean the clutch. I had priced the unit before at $2300.00. I also did not have luck locating any used kioti steering units. I did notice that they look awfully close to the kubota units of the same size and age. Does anyone know if that is true. If so I might have better luck locating a used kubota power steering unit. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks

 

[ToadHill]

Brake cleaner works well to flush out the clutch.