I have tried to read all the old threads on this.1845c. Tag gone. Brown cab. I have confirmed the cylinders are good by isolating them. Actually both are new. I replaced the valve assembly with a used one since I couldn't get a replacement relief valve for the valve assembly I had. My local dealer found it and checked the o-rings and found all to be in order. I have removed the relief valve block that has 3 relief valves and found no o-rings torn or look bad. i have not reinstalled the relief block yet but after each attempt listed the bucket still drifted even without a load. What am i missing?
How did you isolate the cylinders?
I put a valve inline on the line that pushes the cylinder in and left open. Started it up, tilted the bucket up. Shut off machine and bucket drifted down, shut off valve and bucket stopped. Opened inline valve and it drifted down again.
If you lift the front of the machine off the ground does it also creep down?
No sir it does not.
Then it's confined to one side of the hyd. circuit. Either something with the hoses or 1 side of the control valve. If it's the control valve is really odd though because in neutral it doesn't creep with the machine lifted off the ground. That tells me the control valve is holding the pressure. Could there be dirt or something in the linkage causing the control valve to not fully return to neutral position after rolling the bucket up?
Welder Dave, After reading previous threads those in the know were pointing toward it being a relief valve. Initially the only one I saw was the one on the end of the control valve. I replaced the O-rings but still same problem. That was when I went in search of that relief valve but none were to be found. Did find a whole used control valve with relief. They would not separate so I bought and replaced the complete control valve. Same exact problem. I have moved control valve very slowly and as soon as it stops drifting down bucket starts up. This would indicate to me linkage nor valve sticking causing the problem. As i dug a little further I found there was to be a block in the tilt circuit with 3 more check valves. I finally found it under the control valve mount. Could barely see it till taking off the belly plate. Cleaned some pounds of gunk away and whole area to keep clean before breaking open hydraulic lines to try to prevent contamination. Pulled block removed each of the relief valves. O-rings look good, valve cleaned and reassembled, still same problem. Agree to it being confined to one side of the hydraulic circuit. I feel it is one of the 3 relief valves in the block but can't find anyone who can test them without the whole machine. Yesterday finally loaded it up and took it to an independently owned hydraulic shop. The owner sounded very determined, and supported my efforts prior to bringing to him. He did tell me I could pull 1 relief valve at a time and plug that hole to see which valve it was without pressure gauges. Of course the problem with that is if one maxes out that function something is going to blow. That's where I'm at and will update.
How did you end up on this? I'm having a similar problem with a Case 435. Bucket holds down pressure but won't hold a load.