installing pilot valves- how to isolate hyd oil ?

[Dan_J]

hey all,
first post and after some advise.
so i'm changing my pilot valve on the hand controls on my italian made tracked loader ECM/ eurocomach 160.4.

now my main question is how do i remove my pilot controls with out leaking oil everywhere?
will all the oil come out the hyd tank, which is mounted just below the rear window, or will the low pressure lines from the controls only leak out that i can collect into a bucket?
i plan on just keeping the boom on the ground, not sure if i have to raise the boom?

p.s the pilot control change thread does not answer my questions

thanks for the help

 

[funwithfuel]

The 1st thing you wanna do is bleed off all the accumulator pressure. The 2nd thing you want to do is rig up a pneumatic vacuum pump to your hydraulic tank to pull a negative pressure. You can regulate the air pressure so that you don't pull your tank walls in. Then just pull your servo control valve out. Be careful to clean any connections that you're going to open or disturb because a negative pressure will pull the dirr right in. Hope this helps good luck.

 

[DMiller]

The 1st thing you wanna do is bleed off all the accumulator pressure. The 2nd thing you want to do is rig up a pneumatic vacuum pump to your hydraulic tank to pull a negative pressure. You can regulate the air pressure so that you don't pull your tank walls in. Then just pull your servo control valve out. Be careful to clean any connections that you're going to open or disturb because a negative pressure will pull the dirr right in. Hope this helps good luck.

Or bite the bullet and deal with the leakage, some times a little flushing is NOT a bad thing.

 

[kshansen]

No idea on this machine but have used a shop vac to hold a vacuum on an oil tank while removing hoses or even a pump. Just make sure the vacuum is not applied to some place that it can suck up the oil from!

One idea that might help if doing the shop vac thing would be to hook the shop vac to say a 5 gallon pail then run a second hose to the filler neck of the hydraulic tank. That way if it does start to suck some oil it will go to the 5 gallon pail first!

 

[Jonas302]

No idea on this machine but have used a shop vac to hold a vacuum on an oil tank while removing hoses or even a pump. Just make sure the vacuum is not applied to some place that it can suck up the oil from!

One idea that might help if doing the shop vac thing would be to hook the shop vac to say a 5 gallon pail then run a second hose to the filler neck of the hydraulic tank. That way if it does start to suck some oil it will go to the 5 gallon pail first!

Works like a charm great idea for changing block heaters too I would like to make a little better rig with a bleed off valve so the vacuum sucks the right amount for now I just adjust how much tape holds it on

 

[kshansen]

Another method I tried once with partial sucsses ( all puns included! ) was to run a hose from a vacuum port on a gas engined Ford pick-up to a fitting installed in the hydraulic tank of a front end loader. Worked and hardly a drop of oil lost while changing a hydraulic hose, that machine had hydraulic tank mounted above the pumps so gravity was not my friend on that one.

Only problem as I was finishing up the hose install notice the smoke in the exhaust of the truck. Took about five mile of hard running to burn off the oil in the muffler and cat-convertor!