Any secret to releasing pressure to attach hydraulic lines for 4 n 1 bucket?

[Allgood]

I think I'd rather deal with Kudzu vine than thorns. Sounds like you're clearing locust trees.

What attachment are you using to clear the ground?

I don't have Kudzu on this piece of property (but I do where I live). I worked about 7 years in the strip mine business and I mostly did clearing with a D11. It was a fun job until you slammed over a ridge so hard you thought you broke your back or got one of those things stuck (bout got fired for that). Anyway, since you mentioned Kudzu, can you believe that nothing but a bunch of Kudzu vines stopped me in a quarter million pound (or more) D11?! I was ripping along pulling trees down behind me and ripping vines out like crazy and I kept getting slowed, and slowed, and slowed until the dang vines stopped that huge 750 hp machine! I was able to back back out, but they sure as heck stopped me dead in my tracks. The guy on the next shift said he spent nearly the entire shift cutting the da*m vines off the machine! You know anything that kills it? I know of no chemical that will kill it. I've also dug it out down to about 8' or so underground only to have it pop back up in a week or so!

[willie59]

Kill it? LoL, lord no, I've never heard of anything that will kill the stuff. I grows prolifically all over the SE United States. My grandfather used to call it "twenty mile a night vine". LoL, I'll never forget that. And yes, I can believe a mess of Kudzu would be capable of stopping that dozer, the stuff literally is that expansive and intertwined. It's originally a native plant of Japan, planted here for erosion control on slopes and such, but it has exploded out of control. Typical with man and his bright ideas eh? It's usually considered a nuisance plant/vine as it completely overgrows all other native growth, but with you and the dozer, I think that's one of the few times it's not.

[sheepfoot]

Hey allgood, we use a simple gates clamp behind the female release, push it up tight and tighten it down, this has worked well and costs little to try it. We have also gutted a set of quick connects
and welded a nut on the hose side, made a tee handle screw that you can turn in to release the pressure, there are couplers on the market that have a lock pin, and even a nut that you can tighten
up against the female coller to help stop this.

[DrJim]

Allgood, some of my experience is just coming back to me.

With our JD 5425 ag tractor, it has the typical ag connectors with the round balls that you simply push in and jerk out to remove. I bought the tractor new, and from the start had a heck of a time connecting one of the hoses--of course, the primary coupling fitting. Everyone treated me like I was, well, just a stupid dentist that should know better than to fool with equipment. I got all sorts of advice: Let the loader down, release the tilt pressure on the loader bucket. Raise the 3 point. Lower the 3 point. Turn the tractor off and cycle all the hydraulic controls first one way and then the other (that won't work nowadays due to electro-hydraulics--you have to start the tractor to drop the 3-pt hitch.).

We had issues with connecting the 4-in-1 bucket to the Bobcat, too, sometimes whacking the fitting with a 6x6x18" block, or even a wood fence post. Then I met a guy who said, "Doc, that shouldn't be so hard." He took the flat-faced fitting off of another attachment, put on the combo bucket, and shazzam, even a weakling like me could easily connect the coupling, first time everytime, without any special efforts. We even figured out we could connect and disconnect without shutting the Bobcat down--just as easy as with it turned off via the "bleed hyd. pressure" switch. It was a defective/pesky flat faced coupling from the very start.

Huh. I wondered if the tractor fitting could be my problem. It didn't take but a minute to figure out that yes, it was the darn fitting. It never occurred to me that the fitting would be balky from the start--remember, we bought the tractor new. A year and a half into it, we changed the fitting and the problems went away. The tractor is the same as the 773. We don't have to shut it down to connect or disconnect (do lower your implement/attachment to release all or most of the pressure from those lines).

Two machines, two fittings, and all our coupling issues were resolved. It's worth checking. Doc