Another thing to look at on my 648

[RoamingGnome]

@JSinMO I'm glad I was able to make you grin, the valve is right under the steering wheel, so it pours into your lap, and then down into your boots

Good Luck with your repairs, don't worry too much about the cylinders, once you get one open you'll see it's not that scary, and gets easier and less stressful with practice. As David mentioned check the chrome surface on the rods when you have them apart, you want to make sure it's nice and smooth so nothing will catch on your new seals

The sad thing about my big backhoe is that the steering wheel is stuck on and won't come off - I had heated it red hot trying to get it to move. I think my next step is to take a zip cut and slice the hub so that I can work it off the splines...

[JSinMO]

@RoamingGnome Thank you Gerry, I appreciate that.

And I feel you pain on that steering wheel!

I heated, and soaked, and beat, and had a puller on this one. I was down to cutting it like you said and it finally popped loose! It put up such a fight I hung it on the shop wall like a trophy!

[Eugen]

By all means, please do what you're comfortable with. I just wanted to remind you of this road taken before. My only other comment is that you may consider getting seals for all the cylinders because they tend to fail in the same time period, and thus you may save on shipping.

[Harry]

Jeff, I found when I ordered a kit for the rebuilding of the bucket tilt cylinder, they gave me more than what was needed and some were of no use at all. I figured that is why the price was so high. My next rebuilding adventure was the cylinders for the 644 backhoe. I disassembled one and found a local hydraulics shop. They matched them for me and I purchased for all three boom cylinders which were all the same size. Cost for all three was less expensive than for one kit of the bucket cylinder. I will use this local shop for all future cylinder projects. Harry

[JSinMO]

Thanks @Eugen and @Harry I’m sure you guys are right about measuring and ordering seals but I just felt more comfortable getting kits for my first time around. I will probably try it on the next go round!

I guess I’ll call this update success and failure as there were some of each! I wasn’t happy with my effort making a spanner for the power steering cylinder, so I tried again. Here is spanner 2.0

I cut it out of steel and used old roller bearings for the pins. I had a good feeling about it but I just can’t get a good grip on the gland. I guess this proves I’m not a tool and die maker! I don’t want to destroy the cap so that’s a hard stop till I get a tool but at least I tried!

I needed a small victory after that so I put a new pin in the stabilizer foot and got it mounted back on the tractor.

I decided to go ahead and disassemble one of the lift cylinders so I raised the loader all the way up and secured it with a chain and brace. It did make easier to work on.

After head scratching and look over the parts manual. I was able to take the cylinder apart relatively easily.
I did look over the all the cylinders and they look good to me. The chrome is shiny and I don’t see any pits or dents so I think there good. Knowing me though I decided it would be a good idea to protect them as I work on them to I cut a piece of pvc pipe and put it over the rod.

I’ll just do one at a time. I can see the seals are shot they are hard and it’s no wonder they were leaking. The tube look fine on this one, I don’t see any burrs or deformation so I covered it for now.

I ordered the new seals for the lift arms and bucket tilt last Saturday thinking I could put them in today but the US Postal Service has other plans! they were supposed to be here by Thursday but didn’t show up. Now all there tracking says is “ moving through network, arriving late” . It looks like there somewhere in Missouri but not here yet!
That where I’ll have to stop till the postman can get them here!

It looks like a sad state of affairs at the moment, but it will be much better before long!

[Harry]

It’s a work in progress Jeff. Looking good, slow and steady wins the race. Harry

[CaseIngersollNE]

The USPS has been a disaster since the beginning of the year its crazy we have not had this many issues with shipping in a long time with the USPS...

[myerslawnandgarden]

Agree, USPS delivery times have been terrible lately. Even my brother in law who works for the post office is warning people to mail early.

Bob

[JSinMO]

I see what you guys mean, still no delivery.

Check out the tracking so far. No wonder the postal service runs at a deficit!

[Timj]

I just learned today that our area will no longer have an evening mail truck picking up from the Post Offices and taking mail to the regional sorting center. There will only be a morning run. Im going to have to figure out another way to get my water samples to the lab.