Hi everyone, This is my first post. Since purchasing my 1025r two years ago, I’ve consistently struggled to connect the hydraulic hoses. The tractor only has 45 hours of use, but nearly every time I switch attachments, I run into some kind of issue.
Today, I tried to connect my loader. Three of the four hoses attached without trouble, but the red line wouldn’t connect no matter what I tried. I spent about an hour trying to fix it, but no luck. This isn’t the usual issue with residual pressure on the attachment side—though I still deal with that problem about 25% of the time, even after wiggling the joystick in all directions for several minutes. Despite my paranoia and best efforts, I often resort to using a hammer to solve that.
This time, the problem seems to be on the tractor side. I can press the nub on the hose with my thumb to release fluid, but the connection still won’t go on. To test, I tried hooking up my snow thrower attachment to the same connection, and I had the exact same issue.
I contacted the dealer for advice, and they suggested releasing pressure on the tractor side by hitting the nub, but that didn’t work either. Has anyone else experienced this or have ideas on what might be causing the problem?
I’m stuck. Not only can I not use my loader for an urgent task, but my snow thrower won’t connect either—and I live in Minnesota, so that’s a big deal. At this point, I’m seriously considering giving up on this tractor. While I’ve had no problems with the engine or drivetrain, constant frustrations like this make it hard to justify the $25K I spent on it. A Kubota is starting to sound like a much better option.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Mike
Here’s the process I always use—I’ve become pretty skilled at it by now. As I noted earlier, simply moving the joystick in all four directions the number of times recommended in videos isn’t enough for me. I typically spend about three minutes cycling the joystick, and even then, I still encounter issues with at least one connector around half the time. The first time it happened, I didn’t cover the connector when pressing it against the tractor, and hydraulic fluid sprayed everywhere.
This time, though, the problem wasn’t on the attachment side as usual. It turned out to be an issue on the tractor side, which I confirmed by trying multiple attachments. This was the first time I’ve experienced that. You’re right about the safety aspect — if the pressure was high enough to be dangerous, I wouldn’t be able to press the nipple successfully. But since I could, and the fluid just slowly oozed out, it seemed the pressure had already been relieved.
After several more attempts later in the evening — spending a total of about 15 minutes working on it—I finally managed to connect it. It did feel like there was still some residual pressure on the tractor side, but I’m unsure how that could happen. A technician at the dealer suggested I relieve the pressure by gently tapping the tractor-side nipple with a socket extension. I thought I had already done this in the field without any success, so maybe I didn’t press it hard enough?
I haven’t heard of anyone else experiencing residual pressure on the tractor side of the connection. Has anyone else encountered this? If not, I wonder if it points to a separate underlying issue. That might also explain why I repeatedly face these difficulties despite carefully following the connection procedure many times over. I suspect this will continue to be a challenge every time I change hydraulic attachments.
