Upgrading John Deere Loader Cylinders

[mars1952]

Hi Folks: I just finished upgrading the hydraulic cylinders on my JD 420 Loader. The tractor only has 1400 hours on it but I was having trouble with the loader leaking down. It would leak down about 10 inches in one hour.

The real impetus for the upgrade was that I broke one of the bucket cylinders. I had curled the bucket all the way down and hooked the bucket teeth on a large vine. I was creeping backwards very slowly, being careful not to tip the tractor over, when I heard a loud bang. The bucket cylinder on the left side had snapped. So to rebuild the broken cylinder was going to be over $250. I refitted with new oversized Bucket cylinders for about $275 for everything. The loader lift cylinders were even cheaper, about $200 for everything. I bought cylinders hoses and fitting from the Surplus Center and cut the ends off and refitted them with the correct ends.

The 2 inch cylinders have about 30% more lift power and about 18% more curl power than the 1-3/4 inch OEM cylinders. The 17 inch lift cylinders that I used yielded 10 inches more lift than the OEM 16 inch cylinders.

I posted a few picture on this site and I posted two 15 min videos on Youtube. Here are the links:

Upgrading John Deere Loader Cylinders Part 1

Upgrading John Deere Loader Cylinders Part 2

 

[kennyd]

Cool. Be careful with that extra power! Have you noticed that it moves slower now since the cylinders are bigger?

 

[mars1952]

Cool. Be careful with that extra power! Have you noticed that it moves slower now since the cylinders are bigger?

Yes the lift and curl actions are a little bit slower.
I think that the loader frame and the tractor can handle the extra weigh OK. My main concern is that risk of tipping over is greater. Since I can lift heavier loads even higher than before.
Mars

 

[maxfior]

Nice work! Looks factory!

 

[arrabil]

Thats pretty cool. I may have to do something like that next year. What are the cylinder specs and/or part numbers? You had to cut the ends of them to add some bar stock and tubing?

 

[mars1952]

What are the cylinder specs and/or part numbers? You had to cut the ends of them to add some bar stock and tubing?

I bought the cylinders at Surplus Center here are the links:
2x17x1.25 DA HYD CYL

2X16X1.25 DA HYD CYL PINHOLE

A couple years ago I purchased several lengths of 1-1/2 inch DOM Tubing with 1/4 inch walls nominal ID of 1 inch. Since the ID of DOM tubing is not guaranteed you usually have to ream the ID to your spec. The ID of this tubing just happened to be perfect for the Metric pins on the 420 loader. I used some scrap 1-1/4 inch round stock to lengthen the curl cylinder rods but I could have used the cut offs from the 17 inch Cylinder rods.
If I had it to do over again I would use 4 of the 17" cylinders since they are so much cheaper and would have tried to find a way to make them work for the curl cylinders.

 

[hawkeye08]

Nice Job, thanks for sharing.

 

[Snaponmac]

Very nice job. I liked the videos. How long did it take to do the whole job and make the videos?

 

[mars1952]

Very nice job. I liked the videos. How long did it take to do the whole job and make the videos?

I worked on the project 4-5 hours a day for about a week.

 

[mars1952]

Very nice job. I liked the videos. How long did it take to do the whole job and make the videos?

It took almost as long to film, edit and post the videos. It takes quite a bit longer to finish a project when you have to mess with the camera and film every step.
Mars