IH560 hydraulic woes

I picked up a '57 560 Gas with Koyker loader one September a couple of years ago, did the standard change of fluids and the hydraulic oil had the color of wet cement. New Hi-Tran went in, the hydraulics worked great until it got much below freezing, then they were weak or nonexistent. The pump whines like it's cavitating when the hydraulics barely move. If it stops whining, nothing moves. Running for several hours finally had things moving a bit when it was above 15 degrees.

This fall I put in new Hi-Tran and filters, replaced all the O-rings including on the suction side of the pump, plus I let it sit for most of a week and drained off about half a quart of water from the drain plug that had settled.

The pump is doing the same thing this year. -6 tonight, she fired up and the 2-point raised nicely with an 8' wide blower on it, the loader was slow but moved. Within 10 minutes of pushing snow outside the 2-point won't move, the loader won't move, and I get barely a whine from the pump every now and again. Idle the motor down it will whine a little, rev it up and nothing.

Either I've an air leak somewhere on the suction side of the pump, or the pump is so worn it can't pull a vacuum when the oil is thick. The filter is a later-model oval one-piece unit, so that shouldn't be restricting flow. The pump is the factory unit, and develops enough pressure to lift a round bale on a bale fork when the oil is flowing. I was thinking of tapping the output side of the pump with a clear hose going back to the fill hole, just to see that there is flow and no air bubbles. Anything else I can check before I throw a $400 pump at this thing and hope that solves it?

If starving pumps are a known issue on this tractor I'm thinking replacing the factory 12gpm unit with a 16gpm unit is probably a recipe for disaster. Anybody know for sure?

- Max

I would say your problem is STILL water getting into the hyd oil and is plugging your filter . Just because you changed the filter and the oil you did not completely drain the fluid that is still in the loader cylinders and then you have condensation that builds up inside the tractor . If you see the outside of the tractor sweating you can bet your sweet arres that it is doing the same thing inside . The filter is doiing what it is suppose to do and it is filtering out the ice Crystal's and plugging up .

I've got the same issue going on with my 1066. Don't ya just love winter? Got up to -1° yesterday. :>)

Allan

> I let it sit for most of a week and drained off
> about half a quart of water from the drain plug > that had settled.

Did you open all the drain plugs? Have you tried putting in an extra five gallons of fluid?

Add a quart or so of Heet.

I did open all the drain plugs and let it sit for a couple of days while draining, I also had the loader and 2-point in the up position, then dropped them after the sump was empty to remove as much oil as possible. Unfortunately, it doesn"t take much water (maybe 300ppm) to saturate the oil, and ice crystals will destroy a hydraulic pump in very short order.

I"ve not tried the extra 5 gallons trick yet. I think I may after one more change of the filter.

Good point, it will probably take a couple more changes to get all the water out. With temps in negative numbers there should be no emulsified water in the fluid now, only ice crystals. I could drain it off, change filters, and just return the fluid to the sump through another filter. If the fluid does have water in it, letting it sit a while somewhere warm would let the water settle to the bottom where it could be drained.

But that makes me think there's probably a sheet of ice in the bottom of the sump since the tractor sat for weeks prior to below-freezing temps.

Days like these I regret not taking that job in Florida.

Your wasting your time tryen to let the water settle out . also the other killer on condensation is starting your tractor on a cold day and working it just long enough to get it sorta warmed up do what you need to do then go park it as it cools down it will sweat on the inside and make more water as you did not get it hot enough to cook the water off. So if you do not have a nice warm shop to keep the one tractor you need in the winter warm and dry it is a up hill battle . To get as much old oil out of the system you are going to have to drain all the cylinders and hoses on the loader and drain the rest of the tractor and refill . Then with many filter change it will get better and you filter change rate will be needed a lot more. . When the bad weather sets in my buddy and i have gone to usen just one tractor and the rest are put to bed unless something comes up and we need something bigger . for winter we rely on the 706 gasser as it will start nomatter how cold it gets I change the hdy filter just before the first really cold snap and we keep a half dozen filters and new gskts. on hand just incase . For loader work that is for the LX 665 New Holland with the CAB AND HEAT .

Water in oil. What I did a few times over the years was this. We used to change oil on relatively new tractors and the oil looked like new. I would filter and save that oil. When we had a contaminated loader tractor, I would first off, get it good and warm. Put hydraulic load on it to do that. Drive it around in higher gears. Then drain, change filter, refill with my filtered saved oil. Pull hoses off loader, work all that oil out of cylinder. Turn power steering many many times lock to lock. Drive it up and down the road in high gear. Then drain again. Take bottom plate off below TA to clean the sludge out of there. Then new filters and new oil.
It helped a lot, didn't always cure them completely. It is just really hard to get water out and keep it out when you are not really using the machine enough to get it hot for a few hours at a time.

One other thing, the original filter on those was just a screen, next one was screen with donut filters inside, final one was paper with the button screen bypass valve. Well, the paper ones get soft and mushy with water present and really restrict oil. On an old tractor like that I would be really tempted to find an old screen type filter. Also, first 560 were introduced in late summer of 1958, the first year I worked at dealer after getting out of the army. We were still getting new 450's in when I started working there.

After it froze up again this time (about 3 minutes of running) I drained the oil yet again, pulled the filter, and man alive was it clogged up. Just an icy slush all over the relief valve screen. The last 2 gallons to drain were very milky, though the first 12 or so were fairly clear. Turns out the ice floats.

Given I'll have to do this a number of times before all the moisture is out, I'm thinking of investing in a turkey fryer to use as an oil heater. I should be able to boil the water off 5 gallons at a time and simply re-use the oil until it drains clear.

Another possibility (thinking long-term here) is to switch to a mineral-based oil in the fall, run it a while and let that sit. Without emulsifiers, that oil should allow any moisture to settle out and be drained off. Then new hi-tran by end of October and hopefully that has it good for the rest of the winter.

I'll post on how well the turkey fryer and/or mineral oil ideas work.

I said I'd post on how well it went, and so far it has went rather nicely.

I liberated a 5-gallon pot and a candy thermometer from the missus, filled two tanks of propane, and had my handy turkey fryer base ready to go. I drained about 12 gallons of HyTran from the tractor into clean buckets, poured those into the stainless pot to heat, and using the candy thermometer heated it to 225 degrees. I poured the first 5 gallons of hot oil back into the tractor, let it sit for 15 minutes, then drained and repeated to melt and boil off any ice that might have still been in the case. The final time I also pulled the filter and added it and the overpressure screen plug to the boiling oil. I then re-used that filter and screen for the final fill-up.

Hydraulics move nicely, no freezing or pump cavitation even at -5 degrees. Since I'm what you might call cheap and I call thrifty, I've a new filter but am waiting for the next time I need to drain to use it.

OK, a few points to note.

1) Water boils at 212 degrees, and the oil won't go above that until the water is boiled off. Get above 250 and you're boiling off additives. Get above the flash point of the oil (somewhere in the 450 range) and you're setting your shop on fire, which will get you talked about. The thermometer is necessary and so is your attention.

1a) Water flashing to steam at the bottom of a pot of oil will make for a bubble that rises and, like all bubbles, then pops and sprays a bit of fluid around. This fluid happens to be hydraulic oil and well above boiling. Protect your hands, face, and eyes.

2) Using a standard 5-gallon bucket to catch the cold oil is fine, but very few plastic products handle 200-degree oil. Those 2-gallon jugs of hydraulic oil from Tractor Supply will, in fact, melt if you pour 200-degree oil in them and spread those two steaming gallons all over your shop floor, which is why the hot oil went back into the tractor directly from the stainless pot.

3) Oil expands when hot, just like most liquids. In a 5-gallon pot roughly 3 gallons at a time is a good start. Use more and, as it expands, it tends to seep past the rivets holding the pot handles, which then has oil running down the outside of your pan to the open flame.

4) There are digital candy thermometers today that might make your wife forget you're using her kitchen items to boil hydraulic oil. Amazon, as an example, has a wide selection of replacements and often times has free shipping. Whatever you borrow, return in better condition or replace with something better. Or just buy what you want from there and don't steal the wife's pots and pans. Up to you.

5) Two boiling cycles on the 12 or so gallons the 560 had to offer took less than one 20-lbs bottle of propane. At -5 ambient temp three gallons of hydraulic oil went from molasses to gasoline viscosity in around 15 minutes. I did the whole 12 gallons twice on a single outdoor grill tank, which is about $12 worth of propane.

If you can keep the oil clean, have a clean place to work, this is by far the best way to unfreeze a frozen tractor.

Full Disclosure: I read about this in an account of the Finns versus the Russians in World War 2. The Finns used to drain the oil from their air-cooled radial aircraft engines after a mission, and would then heat it in tin jugs over a fire and pour it back into the aircraft just before the next take-off cycle. The Finns had their aircraft start in -40 temps consistently.

Either borrow your wife's spatter shield (looks like a cheap tennis racket made with metal window screen) or make your own from a piece of steel mesh window screen. That will keep the oil in the pot.

You don't have to wait for the next change to change the filter. Only a small amount of oil will drain when you remove the filter cover.