So what do you guys do?

rback33 said:

do what I can to help with any and all tractor or loader questions

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Wow! if it's not too much trouble I have a non-Mahindra question.

I'm thinking about opening up and cleaning the AICO two lever control valve on my early-1980's Great Bend loader. The curl leaks down gradually when I leave loaded forks elevated in front of the bucket. I know, this is stress beyond what it was designed for.

The loader is model GB-20. Great Bend (Kansas) folded and BushHog owns the trademark, but BH doesn't have any specifications or parts lists for the old GB's.

Do you know if that valve is still supported with parts, and where to find? Or the cost for an equivalent new valve?

Here's a photo showing how the valve is installed. It is bolted down to a flat plate.
http://www.nettractortalk.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=860&d=1195703711

Also over in this thread by another poster, he has photos of his control that is identical to mine except his installation used the side ports, while my in/out are on the front of the valve.
http://www.nettractortalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=451

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this mystery!

California, do you know the flow that is being put through the valve? It looks like a fairly standard 2 spool valve, so as long as you match the flow rate it should be an easy replace.
If the curl is leaking down in the valve you might have to replace the valve body or the spool anyway, so a new valve might be the most straight forward option.
A quick search revealed this valve for $180.
Make sure it isnt the rams leaking down though.

Well, I will see what I can find out about the GB Valve. Most of the people that worked there now work for us anyway, most importantly their design engineer. I will take a moment to correct a small misconception. GB did not fold. The owner sold it under the impression that it would continue to run as it always had when he needed to retire. Bush Hog decided to build and all new plant in TN and move production out there. They subsequently closed the Kansas plant. I must say that it has worked out FANTASTIC for us. My guess is that Mith is right and just finding another two spool valve to replace it will be you best bet. I am sure we have one that would work, but I can bet you can find one elsewhere at a better price than what I can sell u one. All mine are spec'd to the applications in greater detail than what you would need. I'll shoot our VP and email and see what he has to say. As Brian (Mnt View) knows too well... getting answers can be like pulling teeth though...

and good point about the cylinders leaking down. It can be a pain, but disconnect the quick couplers from the valve to isolate the cylinders to make sure it's not them causing the issue.

Bindian said:

Here is a photo of what I was doing Sunday night. I got to play on the new diesel cherry picker and open the vertical fin up of a Boeing 737-700
hugs, Brandi

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Now that is one impressive "workplace" photo! I hope you're posting that in your blog as well!

Dougster

Dougster said:

Now that is one impressive "workplace" photo! I hope you're posting that in your blog as well!

Dougster

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Dougster,
Yes, it will go into the blog.
hugs, Brandi

irwin said:

Too many of you guys/gal(s) have exciting, fun, fulfilling careers, or better yet life giving retirement activities. Where are the job hating joes, whos most excitement in the whole work week comes friday at quitting time? mon. tues. wedn. thur. fri. fri. evening

Thank heaven my wife has a good education, makes more $ than me, and best of all loves my sorry a&&.

I've been in auto service or sales since the early eighties, been running a 4 bay garage for 15 years now. Much better than the 10 bay place I ran. Plenty of stress but still only 1/3 the agravation.

The wife and I bought a small overgrown plot (-7 acres) and are working on it in our (limited) spare time.
Without this to look forward to life would be a sorry affair.

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The grass is always greener elsewhere Irwin. Like you, I always envied those folks that actually chose careers they would enjoy rather than merely accepting careers that would (allegedly) pay the bills reasonably well with some perceived (often outright false) sense of security. Mechanical Engineering had a certain appeal to me... but the particular job, location and industry I chose was purely for the money... and that was my downfall.

At this point, now fully understanding the tough lifestyle, family, political and practical issues that go along with being an engineer in America today, I would never recommend such a career path to anyone.

Dougster

rback33 said:

Well, I will see what I can find out about the GB Valve. Most of the people that worked there now work for us anyway, most importantly their design engineer. I will take a moment to correct a small misconception. GB did not fold. The owner sold it under the impression that it would continue to run as it always had when he needed to retire. Bush Hog decided to build and all new plant in TN and move production out there. They subsequently closed the Kansas plant.

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Thank You!!!

Your response is 180 degrees better than the brushoff I got from Bush Hog. All I asked them was if they could supply hoses. Bush Hog's 'Customer Service' said they had nothing for that brand they had purchased, best they could do was sell me an operator manual for their own current models.

Great Bend was obviously a quality brand. My loader is all scratched up showing horrible abuse for near 30 years and everything's still all aligned and straight. If you now have their engineers, I know you have a quality brand.

disconnect the quick couplers from the valve to isolate the cylinders to make sure it's not them

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I'll try that. No quick couplers, but I have a couple of proper caps. As you suggested I'll see if Mith's aftermarket valve is the right capacity. I think the tractor is around 4.5 gpm.

Your presence here is a valuable addition. Again, Thank You!

larryRB said:

you must be up on 395 towards Putnam area or close.

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Larry; not quite that far north, I drive the speed limit old chum.

The Day newspaper calls Rte 169 (from exit 83A off 395 ) north the most beautiful scenery in Connecticut. I'm a half mile off Rte 169 on a, thankfully, less traveled route in Newent Ct (Lisbon).

Yet another IT guy - most recently playing with ERP systems and databases. Unfortunately, I'm doing it with a retired mentality, but on a working man's budget....

Fred

Home is where the bus is.

GreenWannabe said:

Yet another IT guy - most recently playing with ERP systems

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You know you've been out of the game a while when you no longer recognize the acronyms! What's ERP?

And welcome aboard!

California said:

You know you've been out of the game a while when you no longer recognize the acronyms! What's ERP?

And welcome aboard!

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I had to look it up myself...

Enterprise Resource Planning ("ERP") systems integrate (or attempt to integrate) all data and processes of an organization into a unified system. A typical ERP system will use multiple components of computer software and hardware to achieve the integration. A key ingredient of most ERP systems is the use of a unified database to store data for the various system modules.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning

Dougster

p.s., This is not to be confused with my own personal "ERPB" (Emergency Ration of Peanut Butter). -d

Dougster said:

p.s., This is not to be confused with my own personal "ERPB" (Emergency Ration of Peanut Butter). -d

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And that is not to be confused with an EPIRB...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Position-Indicating_Radio_Beacon

Now, Professor of Law and attorney,.......... retired police chief

Welcome to Net Tractor Talk professor / counselor / chief.

I'm glad you found us.

Enjoy and post often!!!!!

Well that is a complicated answer.

I have worked as a carpenter, machinist welder, six years in the Navy working on missle guidance systems (Aegis) 12 more doing the same as a defense contractor. IT systems engineer for 12 years.

Like others I and my family got tired of long hours and being on call all the time. Now I do handyman work and fix an occasional computer along the way.

I am in the middle of building a metal building that is part garage part shop and part living space to live/work out of until I get around to building a house out in the woods of NW Arkansas.

I really like the freedom of being able to work when I want and go fishing or whatever when I want. My daughters are tickled to have Dad around now, especially the one that is old enough to have boys interested.

But that is a whole nother story.

Well since someone dug out this timeless thread I will offer my $0.02:

I grew up in my Dad's shop and on my Grand Dad's ranch. My Dad had a car shop when I was small in the fifties then was in the Fork Truck business. I went to the Army for three years where I develeoped an interest in electronics. After the Army I got an Electrical Engineering degree and was involved in various forms of Scientific Instrumentation before ending up in a niche area of the Automation Software HMI industry. That industry initially was small companies with rapid growth and massive opportunity, but were gobbled up by some Mega companies.

Once the industry opportunities all but evaporated, I spent a year doing contract fork truck maintenance on a fleet of 80 trucks in a very large plant. I then ended up getting a job with an Automation company as an asset manager within the same plant.

About four years left to retirement if the wheels don't fall off of the economy before then.

Yep, right there with ya Doc. I'm looking at retiring in 6 to 8 years and sure wonder how things will be from now to then. Kinda scary, but not much we can do about it except for save and keep our fingers crossed.

Copier mechanic. I drive around the county and flirt with secretaries during the week (rough way to make a livin huh?). Occassionally I'll fix a copier. Then its off to tear stuff up with a tractor on the weekends.

Interesting RJ. Sounds like fun. How many of your customers know about the hard drives that hold a copy of all copies made on the copier? Do they ask for the drives when they turn the machines back in?

It is a lot of fun most of the time. Oh the stories i could tell you that you that you wouldnt possibly believe.....
Most of our customers know about data archiving on the hard drives. We made a company policy to do a machine memory wipe (engine data clear) and format the hard drive at the machine level whenever we get a used machine on trade in or whenever a machine comes out of a customer location for any reason with the customer watching and have them sign a document saying that they saw us do it.
On most gubmint contracts they keep the hard drive so they can perform thier own super secret spiderman decoder ring format process. They keep the ram sticks so they can clear/format/build popsicle stick boats/chew on em or whatevery they decide to do.