I bought my '86 345 recently and have been going through all the systems. Now it is the levelers.
After filling the tank I found that 1 leveler worked but leaked, 2 did nothing, and one could be made to work with some encouragement. I decided to tackle one that did not work first.
This one is leaking;
This one does not work and is the first one that I will attack;
Notice the corrosion on the threaded section on the actuator. You will see how bad that is later.
The bolts were rusty but came out with some effort. The hydraulic line fitting was rusty and would not unscrew. I had to remove hydraulic fitting from the actuator to disconnect the hydraulic hose. This requires removing the actuator from the leveler cylinder. The mounting threads were so corroded that they crumbled when I turned the nut.
Anyway, with come effort I got it all out. The actuator is junk. I wanted to see how they worked so I disassembled it.
It came apart quite easily. I was not expecting that! This shows the cylinder section at the bottom of the picture and the valve section at the top. Notice the threads on the cylinder are almost completely corroded away.
The long pointed rod in the middle is the valve. You might notice that it is bent. That is the result of me pounding on the actuator to get it out of the mounting. The corrosion was so bad I had to pound on it with a hammer. Next time I will find a better way. The rod it too bent to use again but the whole actuator is shot anyway.
Do not pound on the end of the actuator cylinder! Even pressing too hard could cause a problem.
The 4 hydraulic lifting cylinders all seem to be OK. None seem frozen or leaking. All of my problems seem to be with the actuators.
I will continue with this project until they are all working. I can write up my progress if anyone is interested. Also, if anyone knows of a source for used actuators I would be interested.
I just finished removing the air injection system from the engine. If anyone is interested in that project I can write that up as well.
Pete.