TEA20 Hydraulics

Last summer I discovered after a vigorous session with a bush-hog that the three point hitch lift mechanism would no longer go up. When I spoke to a mechanic this spring about it he said that the problem was most likely in the hydraulic switch which splits the flow between the hitch and the cylinders. Surely enough, a push on the switch and that which was dead came to life, even though I had tried the same thing innumerable times before.

Now after a session with a loaded cement mixer, the hoist isn't working again. No amount of fiddling with the push/push switch makes a difference, though I notice that engine idle dies down a bit when I put the lift to "up".

Variables: 1. It's been sitting outside in the rain, and there seems to be quite a bit of rain water in the transmission/hydraulic oil.

2. While the tractor is in excellent overall condition, I think it hates me. It sparks whenever I re-connect the battery, backfires at me when starting, runs out of gas at the most inappropriate moments. The rest of the time it runs perfectly, just to lull me into trusting it.

3. I suspect that it knows about the bush-hog waiting and doesn't want any more weed seeds in its radiator, so it's faking illness.

4. I seem to recall reading somewhere about a protection system to prevent damage to the system from fools who overload it. Seems I switched the pto on and off a few times last summer to restart the bush-hog. PTO works fine now, though.

Any suggestions? Anybody want to adopt a Ferguson from a potentially abusive master? I think I need low range and a live pto.

Rod

I have just read about the control spring on the hydraulic system in another post. Could having a steel bar across the spring to keep the hitch from going down too far have something to do with its performance? (This may be a really dumb question, but...) When I put the mixer on I had to jam a piece of plank in there to gain more height. Then all of that weight went onto it, and I suppose the force is on that spring.....

Maybe I should take my trusty floor jack and lift the mixer off the spring and then try it.

The bar was my dad's innovation, a piece of channel steel held neatly in place with two u bolts.

Regarding the 3 pt hitch mixer. The following day I completed the job with my trusty electric mixer with fewer hassles and continuous production. For a one-man operation I would never buy one of the tractor-mounted ones. The PTO spins it way too fast, and the aggregate ends up plastered to the walls of the mixer. Then I have to shut off to scrape it down, then start it again. It's very hard to get access to the aggregate while the mixer is loaded, because of the small access hole.

Finally I took care of the segregation of materials when the thing abruptly overbalanced and vomited the entire contents onto the grass. When I shovelled it back in it mixed pretty well. Now that was my only attempt with the borrowed abomination. It did hold a bag of cement and forty shovelfuls of cement gravel, with room for more.

Ah, but you say, "The tractor delivers the concrete to the footing." It had better, because it dumps too low for it to go into a wheelbarrow. Hence my attempts with the plank.

In fact, I found I could put the $150 electric mixer right next to the job, a utility trailer with a yard of gravel in it a step away, and run the wheelbarrow downhill to the site much more easily than backing the tractor around.

Advantage electricity, by a wide margin.

Thanks for the information and advice.

While I can't move the mixer by lifting on it, I would think the tractor should be able to lift more than four hundred pounds or so. Could that be because of water mixed with the fluid?

Thanks,

Rod