Hola guys He have a situation with this grove crane. Front steering doesn't work/respond. Rear steering and everything else is working. I assume it could be a solenoid or something like that, but dont have manual neither electrical schematic. That`s why I`m asking to any of you for help.
I think the problem might be the orbitrol, since the system is composed by the pump, valve and orbitrol. The valve sends oil to the swing and orbitrol and the swing works fine. The steering wheel doesn't move
i believe there is a priority valve in the circuit also. if it is locked in one position or the other or bypassing hyd pressure the orbitrol swing valve will be locked.
I removed the orbitrol and it gets oil pressure. Then I checked the oil feeding from the orbitrol to the cylinders and there is oil. Then I lifted the wheels crane and tried to move the steering and it moves, really heavy though
Have you checked out the cylinder on the axle. If you pull the lines do you have flow down there. Can you stroke the cylinder by hand with the lines off.
I was thinking about that. The cylinders are kind of small. Never seen a stuck cylinder (and neither both at same time). It is rare but possible. I´ll try to move the cylinders by hand
I was thinking damage or contamination. It may not be both, they work together so one may be holding the other back. plus, you have checked most of the obvious stuff already.
I checked the cylinders manually and they work . So I think this could be a pressure/flow issue. When I removed the orbitrol, the inlet oil flow looked good, also the outlet and same flow coming out of the cylinders.
Back again reporting this issue. We took the orbitrol to a shop. They said the orbitrol is fine. So we took the cylinders and guess what.... they are fine also. I can´t believe this. When we took the cylinders out, we turned the wheels (maybe the wheel bearings were the problem) but they turned fine. Now the system consist of a steering pump, a pressure relief/flow divider valve, orbitrol and the two cylinders. And I´m sure the orbitrol is getting oil ´cuz when we took it we started the engine to see it and we got plenty. The repairing shop will make a circuit since they have the elements.
check the hoses. They can collapse internally, thus acting like a valve and stopping the flow of oil.
Ok guys, I got the repaired orbitrol and cylinders. We put them back and the steering wheel turns fine, but wheels don't. Also two things. One: you can hear a lot of click, click, click when turning the steering wheel left or right and second, when engine not runing you still can turn left or right the steering wheel. I´m pretty sure the orbitrol repair was not good. What do you think? Also, as far as I know, steering problems most of the time are related to the orbitrol.
If the engine is not running and the orbitrol is functioning correctly you would need to be Popeye to turn the steering wheel against the resistance of the orbitrol. My vote's on the orbitrol, you should not hear anything like a click when it is turning.
with 2 cans of spinach popeye couldn't turn it if orbitrol is operational.
Thanks for your replies. I asked the shop guys to come and check it on site.
Ok, so we took the orbitrol to be checked and installed again. Now the steering wheel doesnt move when engine stopped. The steering improve, like 50%. What I noticed is the hoses go from the orbitrol to the swivel and then to the cylinders. I was lucky to get 3 pics from the service manual. Maybe oil is leaking at the swivel making turning the steering wheel heavy?
Can you temporarily bypass the swivel for a test of the steering, in other words connect the hoses from the upper frame direct to the ones in the lower frame..? You would need to be careful not to move the machine (put it up on outriggers maybe?) so that there's no chance hoses could be damaged. If the steering works fine by taking the swivel out of the circuit then internal leakage within the swivel would appear to be your problem.
what nige said, but in addition before you pull swivel a little testing is in order. there should be no leakage between ports 5&6 thru the swivel and there should be no leakage between the cylinder function ports (5&6) and the pump supply port or function drain port (#10). if there is leakage there is problem with seals in the swivel (the obvious) or a crack in the lands or grooves of the swivel stem (not so obvious-requires dye check or mag particle inspection after a through cleaning). hopefully just a bad packing and a reseal of the swivel is required)