grapple hydraulic setup 1026r

swick1 · Oct 6, 2012

J_J said:
You may have the solenoid on to tight.

Also don't over tighten the mounting bolts.

Some solenoid valves have a manual mode of operation.

This is my valve:

http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?item=9-7852&catname=hydraulic

What is the knob on the top for?

J_J · Oct 6, 2012

I believe there is a plunger under the cap that can be used to manually shift the spool, if it is not jammed to hard.

Some solenoid valves have this ooption.

http://www.hydraforce.com/Solenoid/Sol-pdf/1-001-1.pdf

swick1 · Oct 6, 2012

Thanks! I'll check it out when I get off work! Much appreciated!

J_J · Oct 6, 2012

If the solenoid valve has this option, the instructions that came with the valve should describe the operation.

Are you shifting the valve after you move the joystick, or before you move the joystick?

You should shift the valve first., and I believe it has to do with the pressure on the spool causing it to bind.

dstig1 · Oct 6, 2012

Is it getting sufficient power? Are you feeding it with ultra tiny wires or something? Voltage drop could affect it and cause it not to trigger if the wires feeding it are excessively small, but these things only take a few amps, so they aren't big draws. Unless you wired it with cat5 cable or something, I wouldn't really expect it. Make sure you measure the voltage right at the connections on the solenoid when you are activating it. Try it without pressure too.

That is very similar to mine, and it is a massive block of steel. I would find it very hard to believe you could overtighten the 1/4" mounting bolts in any way that could affect it. Perhaps it is possible to overtighten the hydraulic fittings, but I can't see that causing the problem unless you went full gorilla on them.

Could just be a defective unit.

swick1 · Oct 8, 2012

I loosened the bolt and bled all of the pressure off but it still isn't working. I'm gonna try hooking it up to my battery charger to make sure its getting plenty of current. I tried to make it manually switch but the thumbscrew thing on the top wouldn't budge. I'll try totally unhooking it next and blowing out with air. Maybe it has some metal stuck in it from manufacturing like our transmissions sometimes do?

rebeltect · Oct 8, 2012

Hey swick1 I have that same valve on my Ex2900, I agree totally with JJ I've found that these valves don't like to switch when under pressure (sometimes they will, sometimes they won't), I plumbed mine through the curl circuit and have found that you must push button first (or in your case step on button first) then work joystick as usuall. I would suggest trying to switch it with the hydraulic lines disconnected. Also I cranked the #hit out of the 1/4" mounting bolts on mine, so I don't think that should be a problem. As far as wiring goes if I remember correctly, I wired mine + positive from battery to fuse, from fuse to a rocker switch on my dash (so I can disable this feature when not needed) then + positive to momentary push button on the joystick then to solenoid and grounded everything to the frame. Here's some pictures if they help.

dstig1 · Oct 8, 2012

Mine switches just fine under pressure. It is a Bosch valve, I think. Looks almost identical to swick's

swick1 · Oct 11, 2012

The dealer did the hydraulic connections backwards! I had them cut the stock lines and hook up the power and bucket curl circuits. They got the two switched around so it was switching pressure to curl when open and curl to grapple when closed instead of pressure to grapple! Easy fix!

swick1 · Oct 17, 2012

I got it back today and it works great! I'll post pictures when I get to use it again. I had to just pick the tractor up and go to work today. He said he had got a lot of questions from potential customers wanting to buy a grapple like it. He's got about 12 1 series setting on his lot and wanted to know if I was willing to sell them. I said that I'd give away the plans or send them a pallet of parts, but that's as far as I want to go. We'll see.

Thanks for all of the help!!!