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See…this is why I ask such dumb questions. I mean, this is my first tractor of any kind. I don't know what I don't know. On top of that I no longer trust anything about this machine.
That's two votes for a 10 micron filter. Good enough for me. Glad I asked. Glad there is a group of people out there to help. Glad Bob Rooks did all that book learnin' so for our benefit.
I will just have to keep an eye on things when I finally get to put the blade in the dirt and DO something with this thing.
By the way, I notice there is a 1 or 2 second delay between contact with the ground and lifting the front end of the dozer. Once it starts to move it quickly lifts the dozer but there is a noticeable delay before it does. I have no comparison so I don't know if that's normal. Otherwise the hydraulics seem responsive albeit slow.
I guess I didn’t say it explicitly but the photo I posted is what I filtered after draining / cleaning the reservoir. Boy did that take a long time. I had to improvise a scraper and brush to get all the debris and crud out of the tank. I washed the tank with kerosene and ran a bit of oil through it to pick up what little kerosene I couldn’t get with a rag and evaporation.
About the metal at the pump. Yeah. I’m pretty clear that there really should not be anything there. That’s why I ran the system for a bit with the cheap oil and old return-line filter. I’m hoping it was just some metal from the manufacturing process. A bit of burying my head in the sand but if I could tell you the whole saga of this dozer I think you would be with me and just try to be a bit hopeful at the moment.
The suction filter looked like this:
It looks pretty brand new and I couldn't find any obvious holes.
Well I finally got a little time to work on the dozer courtesy of Father’s Day.
I got the leak fixed by measuring the o-ring grooves and buying the proper sized o-rings (according to the Parker o-ring catalog). I also had to remove the paint from the o-ring groove and flange surface! Yeah…paint IN the o-ring groove???Here is what I found when I drained the tank looking for the source of metal particles:
Mostly a mixture of sand, dirt, and metal.
I poured in some cheap-o ISO46 oil I bought from TSC and ran the hydraulics for a few minutes. Assuming 8gpm pump I think I cycled the entire tank 5 times. Now I’m going to drain it and replace the filter. Then refill with “good” oil and run it for 10 hours or so then replace the filter one more time. That should do it. (?)
Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there.
Just to clarify, when I said the stiff o-rings is no big deal, I meant to say it is no big deal to fix. Also to clarify, there are two o-rings on that assembly. One is on the face of the pump and one is on the hose fitting. I didn't mean to imply there were two o-rings at the same interface.
Draining the reservoir isn't a problem since I did it by accident. After removing the flange in question there was a slow drip coming out of the pump. Over night it drained the reservoir. I will remove the screen in the fill hole and see if I can drag a magnet down in the bottom of the tank. I bet there is a suction screen behind that big banjo-fitting at the bottom? I will remove that too and inspect it.
Are there any likely places to look for where the shavings might be coming from? TPH lift? Pump? Valves? Any of the cylinders?
Well I removed the line and got a pretty steady flow of oil out of it. Seemed like it was going to run forever so I succeeded to raise it high enough to stop the flow. Maybe it was siphoning the tank empty I don’t know. Anyway, what I found when I removed the flange was more disconcerting. Can’t really take a picture this time though.
What I found was two very stiff o-rings. Not a big deal there. But I also found a few metal shavings. They are attracted by a magnet so I’m guessing steel. It wasn’t a lot of shavings maybe three or four about maybe 0.5mm long..probably smaller. My feeling is they shouldn’t be there at all.
My next thought is to pull the filter and see what I can see there.
Any experts have ideas?
Doesn't your reservoir have a drain plug?
I guess that's one question I have. Is it “standard procedure” that every time you work on anything hydraulic you have to drain the tank?
My next issue after this one is to swap the lines going to the tilt cylinder. Should I just drain the system and do all this at once? Was kinda hoping it didn't work that way.
Our tomatoes don't know what to do.