Deere 690E partial stick in and slow movement solved

This post hopefully will help point someone in the right direction in the future. This has been long and slow to unwind resolution but its finally figured out.. We have a nice 690elc that's worked flawlessly since purchase. When we bought it used, it had 5000 hrs on it and had been sitting a while. After beginning to use, as expected each cylinder would need repacking. seals were dry rotted and leaking. one by one, we reworked as needed. Out of nowhere one day the stick in and stick out function acted strange and bucket control acted up but straightened out. Machine became unusable and had to be addressed. we first sought out information from experienced service personnel, and chased our tail for a month or two. Finally hired a "Heavy eq Mechanic" and a thousand dollars later got an i don't know??? Hired another mechanic and got another i don't know. We replaced joystick, went around port manifold and tried all kind of things. Finally, after many attempts, we were able to get a hydraulic shop field service rep to come look. He didn't care if it was Deere, Cat or what ever. Its hydraulic to him. Within 30 minutes, he suspected joystick, even though it was new. we replace again to prove it wrong and it was not the problem. With a second new joystick installed, they got to looking at pressures a bit closer. Something was suspect on spool valve for stick in. The pulled spool valve and brought to their shop. Up on disassembly, the found small piece of metal floating around. no damage cleaned up and back together. ran fine for one day, and same problem again. Pulled down spool, another piece of metal found. After this, I informed him that their shop had repaired crowd cylinder, and when removing the nut from rod, all threads were galled up. They called and offered a couple choices. One was to machine new threads and put slightly smaller nut on rod and that wad done. Little to anyone's knowledge, the LOCKNUT used was slightly taller than original non lick nut. Each time cylinder fully retracted, it mashed off a little piece of metal and went floating around and hung up in the spool valve. They made good on all of it and I would highly commend them for the final outcome. Even though it still cost me a couple thousand for unqualified servicemen along the way. Lesson learned....wait till the qualified help can get to you and give it a look. I hope someone can benefit from this.