Hydraulics...

On Saturday morning, the power take-off (PTO) belt on my John Deere 400 with Front End Loader broke.  I was trying to use the bucket to move some dirt, and all of a sudden the bucket wouldn't lift any longer.  Bummer.

So I climbed off the tractor, and took a look at the engine.  Sure enough, there was a belt hanging out of the side of the engine compartment.  So I pulled the belt out and went over to AutoZone to buy a replacement.

After some cajoling, I managed to get my son to spend some time with me on Sunday morning replacing that belt.  That turned out to be, well, not complex, but surprisingly difficult due to placement and general griminess of all of the bolts in question.  Here was the process:

1. Unbolt the hydraulic pump, set it on the ground.
2. Unbolt and remove the hydraulic pump mounting bracket.
3. Unbolt the lower PTO pulley cover.
4. Wrap belt around lower PTO pulley and the crankshaft pully
5. Replace lower PTO pulley cover.
6. Replace hydraulic pump mounting bracket, but leave bolts a little loosey-goosey
7. Replace hydraulic pump.
8. Tighten hydraulic pump mounting bracket bolts.

Sadly, after doing all of this, and exhausting probably a half gallon of Fast Orange in a futile attempt to keep my hands clean, the hydraulic system still doesn't work.  I'm not sure why.  So now I get the unbridled joy of troubleshooting a system for which I have no documentation and little understanding. Time for learning - yay :-/

UPDATE: it turns out the PTO couples to the hydraulic pump by way of a sheer pin, which was apparently broken at the same time as the PTO belt. I've become quite accustomed to manufacturing replacement sheer pins from 16 penny nails, and even more accustomed to knowing how much throttle to give the engine to avoid breaking said nails.