For about a month I have been putting a little piece of wood under the pedal so the engine stays running when I take my foot off
With repair skills like that, you would fit right in with my operation. Actually this is a great example of how equipment has become way too complicated, and not easy to repair.
If this was a 2007 loader, you could have a bad electronic pedal, wiring issue to ecm, ecm bad, any one of a number of sensors or wiring issues. And you wouldn't have been able to run the loader.
Instead you've been getting by with a board under the pedal, and will be able to maybe stare at it long enough, to figure out what does what, from a drawing, and fix it.
Instead of having to call the cat man, pay him a hour drive time to your yard. Stand around while his computer "boots up". Listen to him bit#% about how the computer is so slow while he's on your clock. Then it will be some problem that has never been seen before, and he'll have to call the engineers at the factory. They'll put him on hold, or he'll have to email them, and then come back when he knows what the updated reboot magic solution is.
I'm not laying that fault on the mechanics, most of the ones I've been around are good at their work, its just the **** poor engineering that goes into this stuff, making things from plastic and tiny wiring, that won't stand up to 20 years of abuse.