I bought an 86 Case 580 SE a few months ago and just replaced the hydraulic oil cooler. I can't find anything in the manual about bleeding the hydraulic system, which leads me to believe that it's not necessary, but I want to make sure before I start it. The inlets for the cooler point down, so it is completely empty. Do I fill the system and work the air out by extending and retracting the all the cylinders multiple times, or is there a procedure to bleed the air out?
As long as the pump has oil is the most important. I think install everything and just let the machine run at idle for a couple minutes to fill the cooler and then work the cylinders several times to get all the air out. Make sure the hyd. reservoir is as full as possible to make sure there's enough oil to fill the cooler without the pump running low on oil. You could have some more oil ready to add after you started the machine to compensate for the cooler filling. I don't think you'd have any issues.
Thank you Dave. I hadn't lost prime to the pump, so it was just a matter of running the machine and topping off the fluid. As you stated, no issues.