Nacademus
Gold Member
When I operate my tractor, say, brush hogging, I lower my loader arms and tilt the bucket back to stop in order to help direct the vegetation to lay over travel under my tractor. Also, while mowing my lawn, I tilt the bucket back to stop and keep it lower and out of sight much the same way.
I notice on these occasions that my bucket will drift down about about an inch or so over a short time frame-maybe 20 minutes, sometimes less. I curl it back up to meet the stop and go on about my task. I notice it mostly because the bucket begins to flop and I can hear and feel it happening. There is obviously a delay when whatever fluid gap that's formed is taken up before the loader begins to move. This delay of movement is much more perceptible when the tractor has leaked down while sitting a storage for a week or whatever. I notice it with the loader lift arms, too. As best I can tell, the loader arms do not leak down while in use-just the loader bucket. Also, my 3PT seem to stay where I set it without issue as far as I can tell. The tiller, rotary cutter, box blade, rear blade, etc all seem to stay where I leave them when elevated, but I haven't paid very close attention. When the 3PT implement is elevated and tractor is off, you notice the audible pinging from the slow leak-down happening but I attribute this to being rather normal. The bucket drooping over such a short time has me bothered, though.
Is this kind of bucket leak down normal? Do you all experience it like this? I suppose the jittery movements that traveling across the uneven terrain imposes on the bucket could attribute to it leaking down quicker-but while running?? The bucket is empty when this happens. I never have a bucket loaded long enough to see what happens then-now I am more apprehensive to trust it so much with any kind of load for any real amount of time.
I do know that my backhoe will leak down if I don't pin it up while attached to the tractor and in storage. When stored off the tractor, the backhoe will leak all the way until it is resting on the floor unless I place a wood block under it. I guess that is expected.
Its still under warranty, I just want to know how common this is or if its acceptable before I borrow a trailer and haul it a hundred miles to my dealer. I appreciate my dealer a lot (surprisingly-good experiences so far with warranty parts service and shipping them to me quickly) - I don't want to send them on a wild goose chase.
I notice on these occasions that my bucket will drift down about about an inch or so over a short time frame-maybe 20 minutes, sometimes less. I curl it back up to meet the stop and go on about my task. I notice it mostly because the bucket begins to flop and I can hear and feel it happening. There is obviously a delay when whatever fluid gap that's formed is taken up before the loader begins to move. This delay of movement is much more perceptible when the tractor has leaked down while sitting a storage for a week or whatever. I notice it with the loader lift arms, too. As best I can tell, the loader arms do not leak down while in use-just the loader bucket. Also, my 3PT seem to stay where I set it without issue as far as I can tell. The tiller, rotary cutter, box blade, rear blade, etc all seem to stay where I leave them when elevated, but I haven't paid very close attention. When the 3PT implement is elevated and tractor is off, you notice the audible pinging from the slow leak-down happening but I attribute this to being rather normal. The bucket drooping over such a short time has me bothered, though.
Is this kind of bucket leak down normal? Do you all experience it like this? I suppose the jittery movements that traveling across the uneven terrain imposes on the bucket could attribute to it leaking down quicker-but while running?? The bucket is empty when this happens. I never have a bucket loaded long enough to see what happens then-now I am more apprehensive to trust it so much with any kind of load for any real amount of time.
I do know that my backhoe will leak down if I don't pin it up while attached to the tractor and in storage. When stored off the tractor, the backhoe will leak all the way until it is resting on the floor unless I place a wood block under it. I guess that is expected.
Its still under warranty, I just want to know how common this is or if its acceptable before I borrow a trailer and haul it a hundred miles to my dealer. I appreciate my dealer a lot (surprisingly-good experiences so far with warranty parts service and shipping them to me quickly) - I don't want to send them on a wild goose chase.
