Retrofit a soft ride/drive on a loader

I put one in mine a few years ago. Got it from Dhfm in gort. https://www.dhfarmmachinery.com/products/loader-soft-drive-sdk750.html

We must be all looking to do it since Adrian on ifarm did it last week. 😀

good video last week and was much simplier than I imagined.

No just the one.

Do you know what pressure it was set to when you bought it? QTP do one which is set to 30bar (435psi) but I couldn't see what the DH Machinery version was set to.

@Limestone Cowboy - how are you getting on with this soft ride kit? Is it setup for an empty loader on the road at road speed or a weighted loader up and down laneways and fields at lower speeds?

You are supposed to turn off the soft drive when you have a heavy weight on it. Even though many lads don't bother.

Well you wouldn't normally be driving at speed with a heavy weight on it.

What do you class as a heavy weight? The only time I think I've ever turned it off was leaving pallets of slates up on the scaffolding for the lads roofing the house just because a bit more precision was required. You won't go anywhere fast with the softdrive off and heavy weight on anyway, that's for sure.

No harm either. Although for lads with cab suspension they might not notice as much anyway

Heavy weight would be a bale of silage.

Generally when you are working with heavy weight on a tractor loader, you shouldn't be flying along at speed. Soft drive or no soft drive.

I am sure you could have a system which would be usable when under heavy load but it would be more expensive and I don't think that the average loader soft drive is built for that. I'd say your loading shovel video above has more than a bottle system costing a couple of hundred bucks. (Some new machines have an inbuilt soft-drive type suspension feature on the back end now, which would be carrying weight but how this is done I don't know).

People still use them under load, but if you check the user manual for your loader it probably explicitly tells you to switch off the soft drive when the loader is being used and only use it for transport i.e. getting from A-to-B with no load.

Might have a bit too much precharge in it for my needs. Just looking to take an empty loader along at road speed. Absolutely soul destroying driving it along the road. Only thing that is worse is the slurry pump.

In the same vein, got a counterbalance block on back which is currently quick attach (no top link). It can clatter a bit when on the road. Would getting a eye for the top link weld on be sufficient to hold it in place or would the quick attach hooks need to be replaced with eyes too? Could the top top adjusted to hold the bottom arms in a jammed position?

Sure. Google throws up a manual, albeit for a Rossmore loader. See halfway down the screenshot below. I would say that it depends on the loader and that "heavy" is relative to what your loader can lift. i.e if your loader is rated for 2T then 500kg might not be heavy whereas if your loader is only rated for 1T then it might.

It's very little hassle to turn them on and off even with a manual one like the above. Turn it of for the road and turn it off for the field and yard. If you are drawing bales for example, you are getting out of the tractor to plug lights in and out of the trailer anyway. Only takes a second to flip the valve

The accumulators can wear out/lose pressure over time. I would presume that not using it when under load helps against that.

No. Transporting means transporting the loader i.e. moving from place to place. Not when using it to transport something else e.g. flying down a potholed back road at 40k with a wet fusion bale sitting on the front. I think that they can burst as well. A pipe can burst on your loader anyway, soft drive or no soft drive, so you'd be advised not to be transporting heavy stuff on it on the road anyway.

I'm going by what the mechanic told us years ago. The first few yokes we had with soft drive we didn't know to turn them off either. I think @FintanMcluskey is a mechanic? He can maybe tell us. I noticed he gave a thumbs up to my initial post.

Ya probably just has a bit too much precharge alright. What kind of a loader have you?