Addendum and full write up - Hydraulic flush and fill

I did a write up of the complete hydraulic flush and fill seen earlier on my blog
(See pics here)
and forgot to post it. Here it is!

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Ok, I did my Hydraulic flush and fill today. Wasn't too bad of a project really. Had it been one continuous project, it might have taken about 4 hours. Needless to say, were I do do it again, I could do it in less than 2, but I learned a lot about the system today!
Started off by trying to remove the knob on the front of the hydraulic reservoir, thinking that was the filling point. Little did I know it was for a single hydrr. set I don't even use (yet). Well, I broke the knob off in the process. No really big deal. Life goes on.
Got the tractor set up and on jack stands so I could operate the steering without problems. Raised the loader all the way up so I could dump those fluids also.
Then I went to draining the fluid. Man was it black and crappy! full of metal junk and just overall very nasty. Worked the power steering to empty its fluid, then dropped the bucket about half way, tipped the bucket all the way forward, then worked/lifted it back up to half way, and dropped the loader all the way down. That got quite a bit more fluid out of the reservoir. Then worked the 3ph to get what little was in there out. That wasn't much.
I then removed the hydraulic filter and cleaned it up, all nice and shiny like. (well, sort of)
I filled it up with Kerosene and closed her back up. Put her through her paces, stopping once to add a little more as the reservoir was emptied, and verified I had run all hydr equipment/controls possible. They all worked
I then drained the kero, and it was dirty. Very dirty. but I felt very happy with the results, as I knew it had removed a LOT of the crud in there. I used the drained kero sludge to clean some of the parts, like the filter, to a much nicer state. The inside of the reservoir was in tremendously better shape, as it was not longer black, but a bright orange when clean! Pretty cool to see.
Next I filled her back up with new AW32 from Napa, and started her back up to test he operations. Everything worked, except the 3ph.
WTH??
Well, we tried topping off fluids, that didn't work. Removed the filter area, and that didn't work. Noticed it was really heavily loading the engine when trying to raise the 3ph, so we figured there was a blockage. We removed 2 different bolts/assemblies from the 3ph pump area, to no avail. Disengaged the FEL and tried again, Still a no go. Then just on a shot in the dark, loosened up the from pump bolt (the one I had broken the knob off of earlier) and POW! It worked!. (Still not sure what we did there)
Anyway, I found if I leave that about 1/4 turn from tight, everything works fine, so, that is where she stays for now. Any thoughts on that?
Anyway, during all of this, I found one of my FEL couplings had some loose fittings. Tightened them up, and everything is now great. Runs great, no boggy power steering, and runs like a champ.
Also got out the grease gun and lubed EVERY zerk on this bad boy.
All in all, a very productive PM day, and I learned a lot I never knew about hydraulics today. Fun project for a first timer.