Excited New 2010 Owner!!

[IslandCrawler]

Hello everyone,

I would first like to thank those responsible for creating this forum and those who share their information and experiences. And to the person who said "there is no such thing as a cheap crawler" you are absolutely and unequivocably correct I initially dismissed that statement however, that is the reality of a 45+ year old machine.

I have been lurking around this site for a few weeks (and read every single thread and post) prior to obtaining a 2010 crawler loader. I have also acquired the necessary manuals from JD Heritage as well as John Deere directly and have been absorbing them into my brain.

Just getting the crawler was as much an adventure as using it (and repairing it .)

Attached is a picture of it (the counter weight is not on in the pic)



I welcome all comments and questions at anytime on any subject and look forward to sharing more pictures and stories of its use, repair and maintenance.

[Lavoy]

Now the fun begins!!!!!!!!
Lavoy

[IslandCrawler]

Oh yeah.


After putting a few hours on it, I was travelling with nothing in the bucket and was lowering it when BAM!! Hydraulic fluid started spraying on my leg (I was wearing shorts as usual) I thought the entire boom cylinder was kablooey but no. What happened was...

The boom cylinder is mounted in the support cup with six 1/2" Grade 5 bolts. When investigating further there were only three bolts remaining all with snapped off heads. The boom cyl. shooting forward also snapped off the 90° fitting causing the hydro fluid shower. I cleaned everything up and replaced all bolts on both boom cyl. support cups with new Grade 8 hardware. Also All of the original hoses were replaced with new Aeroquip hoses and hardware. Will post pics soon.

Has anyone experienced this?

[Lavoy]

If by experienced this you mean an old money pit breaking and peeing oil on you, add me to the list, several times!

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

You mean, they're *not* supposed to do this sort of thing! Heck, I just figured I'd missed the section of the manual where they mention the oil peeing part!

It's not just the old iron that does this. New stuff is equally happy to pee on you.

I have a brand-new JD/Frontier sicklebar mower. Bought it in June. Used it one hour, count that, one hour, when it decided to pee oil on me. Lots of oil, too.

Seems that there is a bit of a design flaw. They have this odd linkage with a folding 'U' shaped piece. It's designed to spring load either way off the ram rod, or stay put against the ram rod. The theory is that with it down, it will impact the cylinder housing, causing a rapid lift of the entire unit in realtion to the 3-pt hitch and the ground. It also lifts the bar up at a 30 degree angle.

The theory, according to the manual, is that this allows for rapid lifting with just the cylinder lever on the tractor, such that end-of-row turns can be made quickly. You don't have to operate both the remote lever for the bar and then the 3-pt lever to get the main unit up off the ground.

However, the design flaw is that the spring isn't strong enough to ensure that the 'U' shaped piece stays always against the ram rod. The cylinder is pretty small diameter, so a little bit off the rod means.....that the 'U' piece travels up the outside of the cylinder right into the fitting for the hydraulic hose attachment.

You know, the one that you're actively supplying oil to at that moment. The one that snaps right off, leaving a hydraulic hose to flail about. The one that sprays oil all over the back of the machine *and* the poor fool that's operating it!

Needless to say, I had a chat with my JD dealer and a few others at JD itself about this wonderful design. I also applied an Engineering Change to the thing - by removing the wonderful multi-action 'U' shaped piece.

I'll just use two levers when I need to raise the thing.

Stan