Well today I was painting my 1974 580B backhoe and noticed I couldnt get the boom to lower. It would go up , but not down. Im referring to the portion that has two cylinders, one on each side. I looked at the cylinders and noticed there was some blue masking tape wedged between one of the cylinders and the seal. I must have missed it when I took it off earlier. I removed as much as I could, but some is still stuck inside. When the hoe is turned off, I manually hit the down button , but it still wont drop like usual. . All the other hydraulics work fine and the fluid is topped off. Could this be what is causing it not to go down? Is there a way to manually get it to go down, like loosening the lines to the cylinders. Im in need of some advice. Thanks Cory
the tape that got pulled into the cylinder on the rod would only cause it to leak externaly if it got down to the seal area. Check and see if the machine has a hydraulic boom lock that may have got bumped into the lock position during the paint job. The lock valve will be between the boom cylinder and the backhoe control valve.
Yeah it has a lock, but its not in that position. Thanks for the idea. It worked fine until the tape incident. Im guessing the tape might be blocking the fluid either coming from the cylinder or to the cylinder. I notice there is a small tube that runs along the entire cylinder to the end. There is also a hose attached to the other end by the base. Obviously one pushes fluid in and the other runs it out, or so Im guessing. If it will go up and it did, Im thinking maybe the small tube on top is plugged with the tape and the fluid can't move. Goose, are you saying the tape can't get into the fluid area? I dont know. Maybe its the valve/handle? The wierd thing is when the tractor is off, I usually push the valve to the down position, it will drop to the ground, but it doesn't move now. I am so bummed, i just finished painting it and it looks awesome and now this debacle. Im guessing Im gonna have to loosen the hydraulic lines at the base and hopefully it will slowly come down. Im not sure if I have to do it to both sides or not.....im just a cop, not a tractor mechanic....... Any body else have an idea?
Ok Goose,I figured out you were talking about a different lock. I found it in my manual, just not sure exactly where it is. Flashlight in hand, I will be back.
Its fixed... Goose you are a genius!! When you said lock, I thought you were referring to the manual lock that you reach out and pull back as the boom is brought all the way back. You said valve but I didnt catch that part. My mistake...... I read your email a second time and then looked in my manual and sure as can be there was a lock valve listed......went outside and flipped it the opposite way and the boom came flying down.....what a relief......i didnt even know what that thing did....now I do....I must have knocked it over, much like you guessed......I love this forum.....great guys willing to help.....