Loss of hydraulic pressure

[Charles Billings]

I feel a little silly asking this question, but before I do the same with my local tractor provider I thought I should ask if you could help educate me. Recently, I purchased a Woods BH 90-X backhoe from my local New Holland dealer. All kinds of bolts fell off the first few times I used it. So, I have had some questions about how well their mechanic had installed things. This hoe was installed on a 2-year old, 400hr, New Holland DC45 Supersteer Boomer tractor/NH loader. With the loader I have been able to park it with the bucket off the ground and it basically doesn't move. For safety reasons I do put the bucket on the ground. With the Woods backhoe, I park it with the hoe as compact and upright as possible, but find that it has collapsed to the ground by the next morning. Is that predictable, is there a leak, or should I always put the hoe down?. Right now, I have it parked with the garage door open, because it would crash through the door overnight. Do I just need to provide more room, or should I expect the hydraulics to hold more that 6-12 hours? When I first start the tractor, and raise the bucket, I hear air hitting the pumps, something I never heard before the backhoe was installed. Thanks for any input you can give me.

 

[dfkrug]

Pretty much, leak down of a cylinder under force of gravity is acceptable
if you can not actually SEE it move. Overnight leakdown of the main boom
on your hoe all the way to the ground is normal. Why not use the boom
transport lock?

 

[MichiganIron]

The weakest function of the backhoe is the boom function, due to the lack of mechanical advantage the lift cylinder has over the boom. Conversely, the weight of the boom and dipper stick has a huge mechanical advantage over the boom cylinder, which causes normal leakdown quicker than what you would see in other circuits.

The leakdown is normal, but should be avoided as much as possible by using the boom lock. Keep the pressure off the hydraulics during storage.

 

[IslandTractor]

As others have pointed out this type of leakdown generally fits into the "normal" range. However, I have a Woods BH90x which does not leak down that quickly. If I leave the tractor for a week I always put in the boom lock so I don't know how exactly how quickly it does leakdown but it does not leak that much overnight.