Power Steering leaking badly

[Momboy007]

Hello All,
Anyone ever had their power steering go out yet on them?
I was working my place this Weekend, moving lots of dirt and the tractor (Jinma 304) starting getting a bit on the warm side so I decided I would spray some water through the Radiator and then take it down the road in high gear to get the mail. Well, I lost all steering and it was some kind of scary at about 15 MPH. I looked closer and found fluid all around and under the motor. I finally got it home using the cutting brakes and found the banjo bolt at the bottom of the power steerring pump nearly completely worked out of it threads. I got it fixed/tightened and this was also a pain to get to.
Anyone else had this problem???
See You,
Rick

 

[fancherf]

Rick,

I have the same tractor. I have never had this happen to me before or even heard of it. I can assure you I will check mine before I do any more work with it. Thanks for sharing the exp.

James

 

[3RRL]

I've had something similar happen on my Kama 554. I lost steering because the reservoir had gone empty? The banjo fitting on the cylinder worked it's way loose and there was a small leak. I re tightened and refilled and that was that. Not as scary as your incident.

 

[Brad_Blazer]

Luckily it's easy to get to on the 554. Mine started squirting when I was out in the field. When I told my wife about it she reminded me that she told me about that loose fitting several days earlier when I was first going over the new tractor and I said I would get to it in a minute. Doh!

Brad

 

[3RRL]

What's even funnier (not at the time) was I did not realize there was a separate reservoir for the steering hydraulics when this happened to me. I had just gotten the tractor an of course did not read the owner's manual. Anyway, I called my wife on the radio and had her bring up a 5 gallon pail of hydraulic fluid. So she loaded it onto the ATV and met me at the home site. I filled the main hydraulic reservoir and nothing...still no steering!

I thought what the heck? Figured I had blown something up. So I had my wife drive the tractor ½ mile back to camp while I turned the front tires at every curve and every time it drifted off course. Talk about a ball buster work out! I had to make sure I would not get run over while I grabbed the front tire and wrenched it towards the right direction the entire way.

When I got to camp I got the book out. Well you guessed it, I was so pissed when I saw it had it's own reservoir under the friggen hood! Man, what a ******. I filled that and it worked immediately. You should've seen the look my wife gave me! Now she doesn't believe I'm the smartest man alive anymore, but maybe the toughest?
I'll never forget that story!

 

[Brad_Blazer]

Whew! I think I would have left the tractor. That's one big disadvantage of the completely hydrostatic steering.

 

[Momboy007]

I guess I am more of a wimp, I used my cutting brakes to get where I needed to go when the steering went out!
Rick

 

[3RRL]

I guess I am more of a wimp, I used my cutting brakes to get where I needed to go when the steering went out!
Rick

Hahaha,
Now you tell me! Man, I wish I would've thought of that! Of course back then if I didn't know where the steering hydraulic reservoir was, how in the heck would I know to use the steering brakes? I had to read the manual to learn more about my tractor....for everything. Now, I'm starting to get the hang of it.

 

[Momboy007]

Hey 3RRL,
Where is 3 Rivers California, I know where Rancho Cucamunga is, but never heard of 3 Rivers. I am out of Temecula
Thanks,
Rick

 

[3RRL]

Rick,
Are you familiar with the 5 fwy going up over the grapevine? It branches off to the 99 North to Bakersfield and up towards Fresno with Visalia in between. Well, if you get off the 99 at Visalia on to hwy 198 and go East towards Sequoia National Park, Three Rivers is just before the park entrance. About 80 miles NE of Bakersfield. It's about 235 miles from my Rancho home.
Where in Temecula are you?