Hydra-Touch Repair or Replace???

I have an IH 300U with power steering and an old (maybe original?) dual hydraulic front end loader. The tractor has Hydra-Touch hydraulics with three valves.

The two valves that run the loader are both "seeping" pretty good. This is a work tractor, so originality is not a big deal to me. Does it make sense to rebuild the original valves or just replace them with new valves?

If its repair, is there any company well known for doing a good, reliable rebuild on these valves? If its replace, is there a certain brand/model # of valve that is a "bolt-right-up" replacement?

Thanks very much for your help.

Bob

I'm not 100 percent sure you're talking about the same valve that's in the 300U which Bob Kirk and I have - but if you are:

The purpose "poppet valve" found inside the Hydra-Touch valve is to help in unlatching the valve at the end of the cylinder's travel, when the pressure to the cylinder goes above 900-1200 psi. When the Hydra-Touch valve is holding the cylinder's pressure, the poppet valve is supposed to be isolated from the high pressure line, and connected to the return to the hydraulic reservoir via a small orifice. The orifice allows the pressure in the unlatching mechanism to be reduced so that the Hydra-Touch valve can again be operated normally, when desired; if this pressure weren't releaved, the valve handle couldn't move the valve internals without breaking something.

This is all covered and described in some detail in the IH Service Manual for the Hydra-Touch systems in the 300 and 400 series tractors. Again, I'm not 100 percent sure, but it looks to me as though the main thing that "might" happen if the poppet valve leaks through is that the unlatching mechanism might unlatch prematurely. Other than that, it doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with leakage when the valve is holding cylinder pressure.

I'd be interested in hearing more detail if your opinion differs greatly from the above.

The inside of these valves (originally) had a very tight tolerance (about 0.0004 inch) between the valve body and the piston which gets moved back and forth to control which way the fluid is going. That's all that prevents leakage in the main control valves. When this clearance goes to pot from wear, etc., you basically are stuck with replacing the valve, or using some external means of blocking the fluid to prevent leakage. Unless you can find someone who can build up the metal in the valve to restore the original tight tolerance, refurbishing the valve isn't going to be effective in reducing leakage.

The cross-check valve which fits on the bottome of the Hydra-Touch valve controlling the Fast Hitch, however, has a metal seat which seals pretty well. If you can figure out how to use one of these with your loader to prevent it from leaking down, that might be the best way to go.

I've been in the process converting my single-valve system to a triple-valve system, so I've been fooling with these valves quite a bit lately (and learned more than I really wanted to know about them in the process). All the used Hydra-Touch valves I got from a salvage yard leaked pretty badly. I ended up going with one of the IH cross-check valves on one of the valves I added, and put a hand valve in the lift line of the second. This is probably the best that can be done at this point using original equipment, since new Hydra-Touch valves don't seem to be available.

The alternative would be to put in new valves of some other type, but I'm not familiar with any that just bolt right on. These Hydra-Touch valves don't rank too high on my list of good IH ideas, mainly because they're not designed to be good sealing valves under the best of conditions. Good luck whichever way you decide to go.