Yet another Ford 1700 with hydraulic issues...

[teachag295]

I bought a Ford 1700 with around 850 hours about ten years ago. About four years ago the water pump went out on me. I replaced it and decided to do a top to bottom service on it. I found that the hydraulic fluid was very sludgy and looked like some moisture had gotten in it. I pulled the strainer (this tractor does not have an actual filter) and found it had a hole in it so I searched and finally found a replacement. I flushed out the case and refilled it with new 134-D. When I went to use it again, the 3pt would not go up. I spent a bunch of time messing with it and finally parked it because I had other projects that took priority. A few months later it took a stray bullet through the radiator on I believe on new year. Then it just sat until a couple weeks ago when I decided I either needed to get it running or get rid of it.

I brought it in to work for one of my students (I am a high school Ag Mechanics Teacher) to work on. We replaced the radiator, battery, battery cables, and fluids. After some fiddling to get the injection pump primed, it runs strong but there was still no hydraulics. We pulled the cylinder from under the seat and the piston seal was shot. What was left crumbled at the touch. We replaced that and now with no load, the arms will lift and will stay up even with the tractor off but have no strength. I am not a big guy and I can easily hold them down. I also do not hear a chatter of a relieve valve popping off at the top. I just got a pressure gauge and will try to hook that up tomorrow. I saw among others JC-jetro's thread My F-1700 testing my patience which had some great information. I am worried that it might be my pump as well. He indicated that the seal kit was around $40. I know that was a long time ago but the only seal kit I see is SBA340490172 for about $173 which replaces SBA340490157 that my parts book shows. The shaft seal SBA340490151 is still close to what it was in his original thread. Do I have this right?

I am thinking my first steps are to test the pressure, pull the relief valve guts and make sure it is not sticking open, then possibly drain the fluid again and pull the strainer to make sure it is not plugged up again. Messing with the pump is the absolute last resort for me.

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[teachag295]

Also, what is the difference between these two pumps? 307001-3300 and SBA340450240 The second number is most commonly seen as the pump for this tractor but listings for the first number also say they fit the tractor and can be found for about half the price. The pictures of them look the same.

 

[JC-jetro]

Howdy,

I am out of town and don't have good access to my stuff. You have done all things right and in right order. It might be your pump or shaft seal. Pump can be taken off non-destructively for inspection. You might have internal blockage or something else wrong with pump. if the gears and pump inner case is not damaged you might be able to put it back together.It can be opened up without damage to the seal. Hopefully it is the shaft seal where it is easier to source and not that expensive. I have a ton of pics doing play by play. The banjos on inlet and outlet of the pump and 4 bolts removed can free up the pump. Just study the pump and piping anatomy. I will head back home on Thursday and can post details that you might need.

Ps. I am in Sunny California and soaking up some sun.

 

[JC-jetro]

I just visited my old post again. At that time, i used a picture posting website that was free. They changed their policies and asking for $$. My account got cancelled and all the pics were lost at the hosting site. I do however have all the pics and can re-post as needed. Just let me know what you need. I can quickly post some pics without explanation and add more as you might need with explanation.

JC,

 

[teachag295]

Thank you for your replies. I hope you had a safe trip in California. That is where I am.

Since my last post I pulled the relief valve assembly and everything looked like it should based on the manual. I drained the fluid thinking maybe there was still sludge in there that had clogged the strainer up but the fluid looked brand new. I checked the o-rings on the suction side and they are good. I read in another thread that the fluid level should be 7 in below the top of the case so I checked that and found it to be about half an inch low. I added about a gallon of fluid which brought it up to level but did not make a difference. I raised the three-point which will barely go up, stopped it, and set 200 lb worth of feed sacks on it. I measured how high it was and left it overnight. In about 16 hours it did not move at all. Then I ran down to the hardware store and got an adapter so I can put a hydraulic gauge on and even at a relatively high throttle, it did not register any pressure on a 3000 psi gauge.

I feel like I have exhausted all of my options other than tackling the pump. I thought about adding a hydraulic stop leak type additive but I don't know what that would do to the wet brakes and any other seals that are still good. My experience is that type of fix is just a Band-Aid that kicks the can down the road a few months. I will probably pull the pump and bring it home to open up in my home shop rather than at the school. Will it be obvious if the seals are bad inside the pump? If the shaft seal was bad would that be leaking fluid into the engine? Also, am I looking at the right part numbers? Weirdly, these parts are available in Europe for a fraction of the price.

 

[JC-jetro]

Howdy, Yup, Cali was good, Plenty of sun and traffic. Hard to afford real estate, yikes.

I would not use any stop leak in any form or fashion as it will end up doing more harm than anything good.

Let's figure out why you are not getting pressure first.

1- curious , how you can raise your 3-point without any pressure. Get a bucket and remove the plug where you connect the gauge, turn the tractor on and see if you can observe any oil gushing out.
2- We need to check your relief device, but let's do the first thing that I suggested and then we go to pressure relief.

Like I said, pump can be taken apart without damage to seal or gears but that is the last one you should do. Need to exhaust all other option and checks first.

Let me know if you get any flow. Remember, any flow and the pump is working but it does not mean it is making good pressure. Pressure is only made when the pump flow hits the spring in the relief device. For 1700 it is about 2100 psi.

Let me know.

 

[teachag295]

I bought my property of 2011 at the absolute bottom of the market. If it were not for that, and there is no way I would be able to afford it today. It appraised recently for three and a half times what we paid for it.

First of all, thank you so much for your for your help. I kept moving forward before I read your post today and ended up pulling the pump. I was not able to get to the shaft seal because I could not grab the gear. I figure I will have to do that at home with a strap wrench if I go further. All of the black rubber seals looked perfect and seemed pliable. One of the hard nylons seals was perfect but the other had some ears on it. I'm not sure that should interfere with anything though. It really looked like it got pinched during assembly. I will post a couple of pictures.

I could fairly easily throw the pump back on and do more testing. I did crank the tractor with throttle in the off position earlier on while I was trying to prime the pump with the port I attached gauge to open. The fluid did not come flying out like I would have expected but it did ooze out for a lack of better explanation. This was also only with a couple of cranks. The metal surfaces inside the pump seeing extremely tight so I really do not think there is any problem there. What do you think? Should I put the pump back on? Do you think that plastic piece is my problem?

 

[JC-jetro]

I am glad you bought your place then. I was in one of my in-law's place where you could sneeze and wake up the neighbors and they bought their place close to 1 million in Irvine. That is just way too confining for me. I can't even fit my tool boxes in his garage.. forget about tractor and stuff. well back to your rig.

1- there is a retaining clip that holds the the shaft seal. Don't force it, no strap is needed. Just need the spring clip pliers to remove the clip and then driving shaft will come right out even without shaft seal removal. Make sure to use hyd oil to keep everything lubricated. Your rubber seal looks okay and it was just like mine. The nylon one is the backer to keep the rubber in place. The nylon one does not do any sealing at all. Take an exacto blade and just carefully trim it. I hope you put witness mark on the 4 bushings. They best go where they came from so the wear pattern would not be disturbed. I don't see any scratches on the pump inner housing so gears should be okay too. Gears are a lot harder than the aluminum housing. I would put it all back together and as cleanly as you can. I don't think your pump is bad. Like I said before ,pump can be dissembled non-destructively which is a good thing. I think your issue is either on discharge pipe (smaller dia) or on suction pipe (larger dia). On smaller pipe , follow the routing all the way to right side of the tractor and you see the relief device. There is a spring a poppet valve that we need to check if it is working okay or not. On the suction side (larger dia) we need to make sure that you do not have any obstructions. The o-ring for the banjo connection can be reused. Put the pump together and try it out. I hope it comes back to life. if not , then we need to investigate further to find the culprit. Good luck and report back.

JC,

 

[teachag295]

I will put the pump back on Monday. I did not put witness marks on but I do know that I got him back where they came from. I was very methodical and how I laid everything out. One of my students who has been doing some of the work for me has a friend that apparently specializes in this vintage of tractor. He is pretty sure it is a valve or seal in the assembly under the seat. He called it the "top hat" and I guess when the cylinder is pulled out it kind of does resemble a top hat. I really do not think the problem would be on the discharge pipe. If it were leaking, we would have a mess. I did not pull the strainer out but I would not think it would be that either being how clean the fluid was when I drained it out and the fact that the strainer was brand new and it has not worked correctly since I replaced the fluid and strainer. That is really what does not make sense to me. It worked perfectly until I changed the strainer and the fluid. The only problem it had was the 3-point creeping down if you let it sit for a bit. That problem has been fixed with the new cylinder seal. I will keep you posted and probably pick your brain more as I move forward. As always thank you

 

[JC-jetro]

Ok. Sounds good. When I talked about discharge pipe , by no means I was talking about a leak at all. That discharge pipe goes to a pressure regulator. Pumps makes pressure there against a spring. It does have a by-pass to tank or diffy in form of a pressure pop-off . if for whatever reason the flow is diverted to the tank then you would not have any flow to the spool valve and then to 3 point. The pressure you will register would only be a static pressure due to the weight of whatever you have hanging from 3-point lift due to trapped oil in the lift piston. That pressure can vary all over the place statically and it is not pump operating pressure. Once you lift something with the 3 point, at the desired height all the pump flow then is diverted to diffy from the spool valve in neutral position. in that fix, once the tractor is off the pressure registered is just a static pressure.

JC,

PS . lift piston seal replacement is extremely simple and a great desing on 1000 series Ford tractors. The only thing to be sure is the seal orientation. The double lipped nylon seal has to face oil pressure or toward lift piston head.