MF 398 constant pumping

Jsmith2211

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Somerset
Hello,

Does anybody know how which hydraulic plug on a 398 is preasurised by the constant pumping on the quadrant? We have always tied the spool with a peice of string before for using the wrapper, but there must be a way to do this from the factory that doesnt involve an old bit of twine!
 

Jsmith2211

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Somerset
It's a dowty screw on fitting or used to be for constant pump of the quadrant,,cant remember if the 600 series had it .
Dont think there are any dowtys on the 398. thats how it is on my 135, but 398 just seems to have the bank of spools and the trailer brake plug. it does have an 880 loader, but the 3rd service is disconected so we can use the 3rd spool. (all we use on the loader are the bale spikes and bucket, neither of which have hydraulics
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
It probably has similar ports on the top cover to an old 135. So, from memory, it will have some kind of selector or combining valve on the top left of the cover and will have an alternative port to the side of this. Best to tap into one that isolates the links though I'd have though, so if possible between the selector valve and the combining valve if it has both on 300 series.

Personally I've been bale wrapping today on my poverty-pack 5445 which only has one pump, so I take the oil from one spool port and return to a free-flow coupler that I fitted. I do not use string but long ago fashioned a small piece of ¾" plank to fit in the slot of the spool control lever to hold it in position. Tidy, basic and it works as well as anything and no plumbing needed. I could return through the spare paired QR port on the spool slice but prefer having near zero back pressure for hydraulic motors. If I was needing to start and stop the oil flow often during work, I'd use the spool with float position and jam the lever forward [take oil from top QR on the slice] and push it further forward to the float position to stop a motor with no back pressure. Today though I was using a constant flow so used the other spool lever and slice and held the lever back, taking oil from the lower QR. It really doesn't matter which and all this should be relevant to a 300 series just as much as a 5400.

Using the inner lever, for the outer rear slice, most MF open centre models have a flow splitter fitted to the slice which allows you to vary the flow of oil to slow things down, should that be appropriate. It doesn't do much for most of the dial travel but turn it enough and about from two thirds of its arc of travel it works well enough.
 

MF-ANDY

Member
Location
s.e cambs
If you tap into the linkage gallery you will get about 25% Of the flow you would get from the spools plus the linkage will have to raise to the top first. No good if you wrapper is mounted. Iirc they are kontak spools so a detent kit is probably still available.
 

Jsmith2211

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Somerset
If you tap into the linkage gallery you will get about 25% Of the flow you would get from the spools plus the linkage will have to raise to the top first. No good if you wrapper is mounted. Iirc they are kontak spools so a detent kit is probably still available.
our wrapper is a kvernland trailed tarrup. String works ok but i just thought there must be a factory way of doing it. aparently not!
 

Jsmith2211

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Somerset
The factory way was a detent kit as MF-Andy posted.
but that would be aftermarket. I was thinking that they would have been sold as standard with a way of doing constant pumping, as that was something that was standard on the tractors before that series.
 

Blue.

Member
Livestock Farmer
but that would be aftermarket. I was thinking that they would have been sold as standard with a way of doing constant pumping, as that was something that was standard on the tractors before that series.
It was a factory fit option,just very rarely chosen.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
our wrapper is a kvernland trailed tarrup. String works ok but i just thought there must be a factory way of doing it. aparently not!
MF open centre spool valve choices has been quixotic for decades. Which is especially peculiar because their hydraulic systems feeding the spool valves have mostly been class leading as long as the auxiliary pump was specified from the factory.
However, this is about a device to hold a spool lever in a position that allows constant pumping for external services. Their omission to provide a simple latch to hold the lever in position until only the last four or five years ago on basic stockman tractors was inexcusable. It's not as if the people inside MF UK and probably worldwide didn't know that it was required, because they did. Its just that they didn't bother or couldn't persuade the factory to provide what customers overwhelmingly needed. Starting in 2003 they did supply such latches on 6400 tractors but only very recently have they supplied it across most of the range. Not sure that they do on the Global range even today though.
They also persist in the left lever being attached to the right spool and visa-versa and the lower coupling pumping when the levers are pulled rearwards to tip. How very David Brown-like! The other issue was the choice of spool slices fitted as standard to open centre tractors. Even if you had three slices, they would all be different. Only one would have zero-leakback and four positions. The other two would be one with three positions and a detent and the other three with a tap to convert from single to double acting, spring return to centre. They should all have been four position [with float] zero leak with selectable detents from the advent of the 300 series onwards to today. You pay for a premium product and you expect premium quality basic equipment that trumps its rivals.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
The factory way was a detent kit as MF-Andy posted.
There was a recommended option to modify the detents so the lever would stay in position and never kick out to neutral. The massive issue with this is/was that many drivers would forget or not know to pull the lever back to the middle when the pipes were detached and there was no place for the oil to go. This would constantly blow a relief valve, heat the oil and soon bugger up the pump. A real afterthought/botch-up.
 

Sausage

Member
We had a 390T with the loader plumbed into a spool and could be removed if we needed two spools for the spud riser. The spool lever latched into pumping and essentially was left to pump all the time.
 

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