Control valve for hydraulic top link.

[john_bud]

The only down side to a top link float would be if you have a box blade. If you have the 3pt up and the box scarifiers down all the way, accidentally floating the top link would allow the scarifiers to hit the rear tires. Imagine the sound of "pop! pop! hiss hiss".
jb

 

[dfkrug]

Hi Dave,

The stabilizers would leak down (via the valve) while operating. This became so annoying to me that I had to fix that. I found myself hitting the stabilizer lever every 30 seconds or so. And after a while, just out of habit! so the tractor was not planted properly.
The second reason was for storage. I've always had to prop up my backhoe so it wouldn't be completely out of position when I came back to hook it up.

OK, I get it. Sorry I missed that whole thread. Good idea.

I guess you have a lot of internal hoe valve leakage. Does that make it
so you have to use your transport boom lock due to main boom leak-down?
When driving around anyway?

 

[3RRL]

No, the boom does leak down a little, but not very much during transport. When sitting idle (off the tractor) it will leak down completely though after a week (maybe sooner?). As I found out coming back after 2 weeks when I first got it. I had left it sitting on the legs and balanced by the boom and dipper stick. When I got back it was lying flat.

Not knowing much of anything back then, I used a come-a-long mounted to the tractor to lift it up and hook it to my tractor. LOL ... Had I been thinking, I could have put on the PTO pump and used the hoe hydraulics!

 

[Eric_Phillips]

People need to go back and read the OP. He wanted to use the float to relieve the pressure on the top link to get the pin out when removing an implement. There are plenty of posts on this site of people who had problems removing the pin because it was difficult to find the place where there was no pressure on the top link.

 

[dfkrug]

OK, back to one of REG's original questions......

If the reason that you want a float capability in the toplink cyl is
just to be able to get the pin out when changing inplements or
getting the pin in when mounting an implement, then any hyd
toplink already has this capability (unless you have piloted check
valves on the cyl). Turn off the tractor and release toplink cylinder
circuit pressure by operating the valve in both directions. That is
what I do. If you need to manually extend or retract the cyl rod
to get the pin in, you will have to hold the valve handle in the
correct position to do this, of course.