Ford 3000 hydraulic pressure 500psi low

BobReeves

Member
Finally gathered all the fittings, hose and gauge, chained the lift arms down as instructed, removed the plug, screwed in my gauge. Started the tractor, raised the lift and the gauge jumped up to 2000.

What started this is my lift will not lift a load all the way up. I am going to rebuild the lift cover over the winter but wanted to eliminate the possibility of a bad pump. Believe the spec is 2500 and wondering if I should be very concerned about the 500 PSI difference?
 
How accurate is your gauge; do you have any idea? When I was in industry, measurement instruments went in for calibration/cal check every 3-6
months. Going to bet that 99% of the measuring instruments in "OUR" tool boxes have NEVER seen a NBS tester since built.....if then!

On the 20% below rated spec, what else on the tractor is below spec by that much?

"If it ain't busted, don't fix it" unless you are bored with nothing to do with deep pockets. Grin.
 
Though it is not a hard job to go through
the lift cover and can be done for $25 or so
in parts, if it lifts whatever you need -
mower, bale spear, boom pole, etc I too
would leave it alone.
 
200 psi vs. the rated 2500 is not the reason that your lift is not lifting all the way. If it can lift whatever load you have on it part of the way up then the same pressure should be able to lift it the rest of the way up. I suspect something worn or out of adjustment for your original problem.

The 2000 psi may be due to the pump being a little weak, but I think it is more likely that the relief valve is opening too soon. Those pumps can generally put out way more than the 2500 psi rating of the system, and the maximum psi that can be achieved is the result of the relief valve setting.
 
This all started when I got a tiller, it won't pick it up high enough to clear the ground. I have ordered the lift cover repair kit and will go through it over the winter. Was hoping I didn't also need to rebuild the pump. Could the relief valve be the reason for the low reading?
 
Could be the relief valve or it could be something leaking internally. You can pull the round plate on the left side that the PTO handle is mounted to and shine a flashlight inside while you're trying to lift the tiller to see if you can see where it might be leaking.
 
Thanks Sean (my grandson's name)

I have the lift cover rebuild kit from this site and a new pin for the cam follower. Might it be a good idea to order a relief valve or are the parts to rebuild it in the lift kit. This will be a first for me and not exactly sure what to expect.
 
I think I ran across a good trouble shooting guide once on the www, with colored pictures showing the fluid flow under different aspects of operation. That gives you a pretty good idea as to what's in the loop during a function narrowing the possible failure mechanisms. The IT manuals at the dealers have a hydraulic schematic, but putting it in color makes it much better to understand, for me anyway.

One thing I learned over the years had to do with pressure relief valves. You have a spring with a set resistance, a ball bearing, and either a set screw which varies the pressure on the spring or a set of shims to do the same thing as the screw. So many shims (thickness) equals so much pressure. I have found weak springs which can be tweaked with shims or turning the screw, but never found a deformed ball bearing or race.
 

If you want to see if it will pick it up farther pull the lift leaver past the stop that will prove the linkage is out of adjustment and a worn pin.
 
For what it's worth...
I was having problems with the lift on a 3000 once and called my hometown dealer to order a new pressure relief valve. He doubted that was the problem because He had never seen one fail. He looked it up on the computer and said that going back to when they went to computers (1998?) they had never sold a single prv. This was about 2012. That convinced me to look elsewhere. It turned out a couple of seats in the pump were bad and it wasn't making pressure. I had another pump and just swapped it out.
He was a good, old school parts man who wouldn't just sell you something to make a sale.
He died of cancer a couple years ago. Big loss.
Anyway, based on that experience I doubt it is your prv.
 

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