I have got to take the top off the hydraulics in the near future to sort out a sticking control valve.
I have also noticed that the hydraulics are dropping quicker without power than they did in the past. The last time I had the top off I noticed a scratch that could be felt with the finger nail that was about 1 1/2 inches long. I guess that this is damaging the gland on the piston.
What options have I got
Could I get the cylinder honed to reduce raised part of the scratch or do I need a replacement cylinder
Its a funny thing about hydraulics. If you had a Ferguson or a Massey Ferguson of the same year, an implement on the arms would be on the ground a very short while after the engine had been switched off because of the leaks in the system. Yet this is accepted.
We Ford owners expect our hydraulics to hold up for ever! Yet they were never designed to do this.
When new, the lift was allowed to correct 8 times in a 30 sec period with a load on the three point linkage. Most did not do this but that was the expected rate. If the engine was switched off, the lift would have dropped to the ground in around an hour.
Some people believe that a lift that drops is safer than one that holds up as there can be no accidents with the implement on the ground.
Just a test. Pull out the auxiliary service control and watch what happens. If the lift continues to drop with a load on, then the piston seal is leaking or the cylinder safety valve is leaking. If it stays up, the leak is on the lift control valve. A control valve leak is going to be the most difficult to fix as you will need a new valve and bush. These units are colour coded but, in practise these codes mean nothing as the bush tends to compress as you pull it into the cylinder housing. You therefore need an assortment of control valves of different colours to find the best fit. Not an easy solution.
A new cylinder might be another impossible task. It is possible to fit a 3000 cylinder with a bit of engineering but the linkage angles are slightly different and this may give a problem when setting up.
The best way would be to hone the cylinder if the scratch is not too deep. Another possibility would be to bore it out and sleeve it back to size.
I would first make certain it is the piston seal by checking it as above. Then I would consider whether I want to engineer a repair or live with a dropping lift. Although it will correct itself in both draft and position control, unless these corrections are numerous and give implement problems, I think I would live with it.
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Brian
I will check it out as you suggest. Thinking about it further I think that the control valve problem is making it seem worse than it actually is. Sometimes the hydraulics drop quite a bit before correcting, if it was not for this I would probably not be so aware of the rate of drop.
That could be linkage problems rather than valve. The linkage can rust up if the hydraulics are not in constant use. Water can get in down the top link spring and there is always condensation.
Fordson Tractor Pages, now officially linked to: Fordson Tractor Club of Australia, Ford and Fordson Association and Blue Force.
Brian
I think that the control valve problem is making it seem worse than it actually is. Sometimes the hydraulics drop quite a bit before correcting, if it was not for this I would probably not be so aware of the rate of drop.