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The tractor has an safety interlock mounted on the side of the control valve. Oil can not pass through the interlock in either direction unless pressure is being developed through the control valve to the interlock by the oil pump. This is a safety feature to prevent the loader or hitch from dropping if the lever were accidentally bumped or otherwise moved while the engine is not running. Suppose you were working in the hitch or loader area and your helper moves the control lever, w/o the interlock it would drop possibly causing injury or worst. When the engine is running it is assumed that the operator is in the seat out of the danger area. So do you have enough oil pressure to activate the interlock? Is the engine running? Is the oil pump lockout plunger engaged? Do you have enough oil left in the reservoir for the pump to develop oil pressure? If you can answer yes to these questions, you have a problem with the pump, control valve, or the interlock. Remember that you have SA cylinders and the reservoir capacity is only 3 gals. So if the reservoir was already low raising the cylinders may have run your reservoir down below the pump suction. When you get the cylinders retracted, check your oil level again. If it is very low and there are not obvious external oil leaks, check the oil level in the transmission. If the transmission oil level is abnormally high, the hydraulic oil in the torque tube has migrated back via the drive shaft seal or leaked by the hitch piston into the transmission. That is very common in the 300 series. Joe
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