JCB 8018 Weak Services

[Kailee33]

Bought a few months ago, was in need of a little love but nothing major, siezed idlers, new cabin seals, siezed windows, loose leaky hydrolic hoses at the block.

Its been working welll but ive became aware that the machine is a little weak on all services. The aux is dead ended but ive found when fully pressing the peddle on, all the other services become a fair bit atronger and work as a new machine would. Also likely related is the dozer blade is easily pushed up when digging, i find myself lowering lots during use.

I read on another thread about flipping the track retract switch which stops the blade being pushed, a quick test and this seems to be the case for me to. On that thread the return valve for the dozer was the issue.

My question is, would this also cause all services to be weak? Why would activating aux sort the weaknesses?

All/any input is welcome

[Graham Roberts]

oping to get some advice on auxilliary hydraulics on my 2011 JCB 8018 CTS.
I want to use my breaker attachment that I know to be working ok. Problem is the breaker needs a one way flow but the auxilliary hydraulics are two way therefore no free flowing return.
As an experiment I unplugged the return line from the JCB, removed the socket (to make the return pipe from the breaker open ended), put the open end into a bucket , started the JCB and the breaker worked fine . Obviously I couldn’t operate it for long as the hydraulic oil tank would have emptied.
This got me thinking about rigging up some extra pipe work with a valve to divert the returning oil from the breaker direct back to the tank via the existing return pipe, oil cooler and filter.
The pipe work to the valve block uses the O.R.F.S. type fittings which are a bit limited in variety so would need to make up adapters to introduce JIC or BSP fittings . This would be a bit of a faff so my thoughts turned to the actual valve block “plunger” (I can’t think of a better way to describe or call it but it plunges in and out as the linkage from the foot pedal pushes and pulls it). My question is this: can the plunger be modified or replaced with something that would let oil through under working pressure to the breaker but would allow the return oil through the opposite port and return to the tank?