I picked some AW32 hyd. oil on sale for $62 a pail at UFA and headed back to the grader. It's about $30 cheaper than the next lowest cost oil. I needed 2 pails so it's always nice to find a deal. After fighting 1 hose for a couple hours the stars must have aligned and I got the fitting to catch on the 1st thread. I could only turn it about a 1/16" but it was just enough to hold in place so I could go to the other side of the machine and reach across with a small crescent wrench to turn the nut. Thankfully it threaded onto the fitting. Not a lot of room under the engine oil pan for a 7/8" wrench but I was able to use the wrench for the final tightening. What a relief!! The other 2 hoses went on without issues because they were easy to get at. I spliced a couple of new wires on the harness with ring terminals to fit the new solenoids. Then I added the 2 pails of oil and was happy it was enough to fill the reservoir to the full line. Now for the moment of truth. Were the solenoids the issue?? I started the grader and let it run about 20 seconds and then tried to lift the moldboard and it came up right away. Great system doesn't need bleeding. I pushed the articulation for a second at the machine jerked. That's promising. I drove ahead to get to a better location and away from the oil on the ground. Just at idle the articulation didn't appear to have much power and was rather slow. I'd heard it's usually pretty fast but it did work. Fantastic. I was surprised how much sharper you can turn. I drove around for about 15 minutes to check how straight the machine stayed. It might creep very slightly to the left but as an added bonus the electric articulation indicator in the cab works. It makes it very easy to correct any creeping. It seemed to creep less if I positioned it straight by articulating right for final positioning. I am so glad I was able to not only get the valve back in by myself but all my searching the net for cheaper solenoids paid off. I think I increased the value of the grader by at least a few thousand dollars by fixing the articulation. The new foam filled rear tires should increase the value quite a bit too. So here's the breakdown. It cost me about $100.00cad. to get the solenoids. They were $8.10ea.us when you buy 2. New from Parker are $660.00ea us. New OEM was less but still over $500cad. 2 pails of hyd. oil was $134.00. A bunch of other odds and ends I bought for the project were about $30. So all together I gambled about $265.00cad. and about 5 days to see if I could fix the articulation and I'm so thankful it worked. I have limited income so it's great the gamble paid off. I have to give thanks to a few members on here who helped me figure it out. Also my hyd. go to guy at Berendsen Fluid Power who spoke with me for over an hour regarding solenoid valves and what to check. He also said valves rarely go bad internally because there's clean hyd. oil flowing through them. It saved me from buying a used articulation valve for $595.00cad.
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