IH300 U fast hitch float?

Dave, to make the hitch float, ASSUMING you have the standard Fast Hitch as described in the operator's manual, all you have to do is to pull the pin coupling the "rockshaft actuating bellcrank" to the left-side upper arm of the hitch. This is shown on page 23 of the operator's manual, in illustration 23. The original operator's manual is available from Binder Books; if you don't have one, I'd urge you to get one, it's a basic essential if you want to maintain your tractor properly and operate it safely. If you don't have a manual, the "rockshaft actuating bellcrank" is the piece where the moving end of the hydraulic cylinder is attached; the float pin is located about as far away as it can be from where the cylinder attaches to this piece, you should be able to locate it easily. Please feel free to email me if any of this isn't clear.

Brett, as some of the earlier posts have indicated, the STANDARD Fast Hitch arrangement on the 300 Utility REQUIRED using double-acting hydraulics. Getting the hitch to float is supposed to be done as described above for Dave. The double-acting hydraulics were required because a cross-check valve was included in the hitch system to prevent the hitch from bleeding down. Your tractor may or may not have this check valve at this point, and it may be bypassed. If you have the STANDARD system, this check valve is about 2"x5"x1" thick, is attached to the bottom of the hitch's control valve, and the hoses going to the hitch cylinder come out of it. If you don't have this check valve in your system, your hitch almost certainly bleeds down quickly.

If you REALLY want to, you can remove this check valve, or you could cap it off and hook the hoses to the ports on the top of the control valve. If you do this, all you have to do to use single-acting hydraulics and have a floating hitch without removing the hitch pin is to change the setting on the switch on the front of the control valve from "D" (double-acting) to "S" (single-acting); it is not necessary to remove a hose and vent the cylinder as you were thinking of doing. Please also note that it is NOT a good idea to lock the control handle as you also seem to be thinking of doing; this continually loads the hydraulic pump even when it isn't doing anything useful, will waste gas and probably overheat your hydraulic system. Personally, I think this is a bad idea and would strongly suggest you use the hitch as originally intended, but it's your tractor. Please feel free to email me if anything isn't clear.

I don't know if this will help any, but here are some quotes from the 300 Utility operator's manual:

"Plows must be free to float up and down and to seek its [sic] own level as determined by the hitch setting." (p.22)

"When the control valve is set for the cylinder to supply one way (single action) and when any of the control handles are moved all the way back to provide the implement with float, the control handles will remain in the rearward position until manually returned to the neutral position." (p.21)

Mark W.

The fast hitch was something I never used for anything other than a drawbar and a fast hitch counter wieght I made up for use when doing loader work. I did have a 3 point adapter but that came after the 560 and I used it for sprayer and a corn planter. In the late 60s after I bought 656 I removed both those fast hitches and bought new swinging drawbars for 300 and 560. The kicker is I sold both those fast hitches for scrap less the cylinders. Now days people are looking for them