John Deere 2630 - Slow/Delayed Steering Response

I've been lurking on this forum for a while now, but I finally have a question that I can't find the answer to, so I figured I'd post and see if anyone has any advice on this issue.

I picked up a 1975 John Deere 2630 a few months ago with about 1750 hours on the clock. It spent most of the first month I had it sitting around while I gathered some obvious parts that were needed. Then the last month and a half was spent rebuilding the seat assembly with all new (and not cheap at all) bushings. Now that it's back together though, I did some work with it last weekend and noticed the steering was a bit off. It seemed slow to react to direction change. My dad seemed to think it was always slow (even when not changing direction) and that it takes almost 1/4 turn before the tie-rod/wheels will actually move. To me, it seemed like it was only slow to react when changing directions (going from left to right or visa versa). If you wanted to keep turning the wheel the same way, it was responsive, though this doesn't work well when you need to drive down a straight road and keep the tractor going straight.

I know the system is hydraulic at the column to a manual linkage that runs up to the front. It doesn't look like there is play in the linkage, so I'm thinking it is an issue with the column. I also know that the tractor could use a fluid change. I haven't checked the level yet, but the hydraulics on the FEL seem slow to come up to pressure (they chatter) until the engine is throttled up a bit, and I lost the loader once when I was parked on a steep grade. I have 10 gallons of hygard and a new filter to put in, but I'd like to figure out if the column needs to be rebuild first so I can rebuild that and change the fluid at the same time. I'm also going to remove the extra hoses hanging off the back when I change the fluid and also remove the weird T they put in for one of those hoses. They Tee'd it off of the connection on the bottom right side where the loader is also plumbed in.

I'm open to suggestions or things to look at.

First thought is do you have worn bushings in the front steering fork..or loose fit on the arm coming off the sector shaft,, look that over close first,, the front arm is bad about wearing,, it will kinda "flip-flop" as you work the wheel resulting in a lot of lost motion..

TheBurningRom
When you change hyd filter & oil be sure to check/clean hyd oil sump screen(parts key 30)

Check for loose bolt where steering arm is on splined shaft. (Behind front snap in plug on left of bell housing)
For the bad news.... Your tractor has many more hours than the tach states with that amount of wear on the seat.

Yes,, Our local Megadealer made their fortune replacing tach's....

(quoted from post at 20:20:29 09/22/14) Check for loose bolt where steering arm is on splined shaft. (Behind front snap in plug on left of bell housing)
For the bad news.... Your tractor has many more hours than the tach states with that amount of wear on the seat.

Click to expand...

I will check for that bolt.

As for the hours, I would have to disagree. The aging of the tach is consistent with the aging of the rest of the gauges, as well as the age of the paint on the tractor. The tractor is mostly original, including the rear tires, which would still be in good shape if someone hadn't let the diff lock rust up and consequently spin one tire down to almost no tread. However, I do not believe this is the first tractor that the loader has been on. Don't see many 148 loaders on a tractor this small, and it is not in nearly as good of shape as the tractor is.

Regarding the seat, the bushings that were worn were the brass bushings. Brass is soft and wears easily..I would expect those to wear. That's what they're designed to do...wear to save wear on the pins and steel bushings. Only about half of them were "worn out", but I replaced them all and painted everything so I don't have to revisit the issue for 5-10 years. I think the wear was more due to a heavy operator as the seat shock was rusted into the 300lb setting and judging by the lack of wear on the paint, it had never seen work in any of the other positions.

I rebuilt the steering valve on a 2030 I had and it may be
similar to a 2630. The piston has shims to allow for slight
movement so the valve can operate. Too much movement
and it reacts like you describe. Had some broken shims on
mine.

Thanks for the info. It will probably come in handy as it's looking like rebuilding the column/valve is the path I need to go down.

We brought the tractor in the garage this weekend and checked the steering with the engine off. There was minimal play in the bolt at the bottom of the steering shaft and minimal play in the bell crank bushing. Nothing that I would think would make the steering as loose as it is. Because of that, we're thinking it's in the column/valve itself.

On a side note, does anyone know if the steering wheel is supposed to move up and down on the column/valve? I think it is supposed to, similar to how the steering on our 318 lawnmower works, but it seems like it should have more resistance than it does.

Thanks again to everyone for the info. I'll post back if I have any further questions and will definitely post back after the column/valve rebuild.

Yes steering wheel will move up/down when turning it.