Hydralic hose connections

I just have a terrible time connecting and disconnecting the hydraulic lines on my hesston or7 mower. Use either my olive r 1550 or is 1020 same problem. Once in a while it books up easy. Never when you are short on time! Any tips??

When it's necessary to unhook the mower, park it, shut the tractor engine off, and cycle the hydraulic lever a few times to let the mower lower and settle, then pull the hoses.

If you don't want to leave the mover lying on the ground, put some wood blocks of appropriate size under it before lowering it.

With the Oliver 1550 pressure is on the remote lines even after the engine is shut off.I have a hitch pin to tap the ball in the coupling to relieve the pressure.Also as said pressure may also be on the equipment hoses too.

I haven't had any problems hooking hydraulic lines up on any of my tractors ever since I learned years ago to relieve all the pressure on the cylinder and on the tractor when unhooking and hooking my lines. If there is a little pressure left in a line on a cylinder as someone said take a hitch pin pushing in there and relieve the pressure on the ball in the fittings

Well if you can afford to spend a little money you can make your life much easier.

On the Oliver 1550 they have pressure on the hydraulics even if you work the lever when they are shut off. I hated the factory couplers on my Oliver 1655. I switched it over to the lever release Tisco couplers 20 years ago. They are pioneer fittings with a lever that opens the check balls on the fittings after you couple the hoses. you can hook them under pressure easily. Just stick you hose coupler in and then flip the lever to open the balls. I made a bracket that holed this style coupler solid on the right side of the tractor. I stacked the two sets of couplers. The Part number for the coupler is QC 9500-4, they cost around $200 a set.


Then I am assuming that the 1020 your talking about is a JD utility tractor. On that tractor switch the couplers over to the ISO conversion kit. That makes it work like the Tisco coupler I am talking about. Then you can put Pioneer ends on all your hoses and not use any adaptors to hook to different models/makes of tractors. The ISO conversion kits cost around $100-125.

So for $500-700 you can make your life easier when it comes to hooking up hydraulic hoses.

Get a set of Stucchi couplers, problem solved and they really don't cost much more than the cheap ones at the local farm store. They will allow you to connect up to 4000PSI.

Check out Bolingmachine.com the make a tool for that. They work great.

Of course the best solution is to have enough tractors so you don't have to hook and unhook,just leave each tractor hooked to its equipment all the time.