Farmi mastersplit wp36 ram sticking

If I let go of the controls with a twang, the ram will usually retract. If I ease off the lever, even slightly, the ram sticks.

The lever under the feed table is "sticky". If I poke a stick in and push the bolt that engages with the limit stops in the channel under the feed table, the ram will retract. If I pull it right back, it sticks open and ram keeps going forward until the limit stop hits it, at which point the ram stops, but doesn't return until I poke the bolt.

Spoken to Riko and they have never heard of this before and suggest there must be something in the chamber. Waiting for a reply having triple-checked and confirmed, but thought I'd have a try on here.

Assuming I'm right and it is a sticky lever/valve, any bright ideas on how to get to it without dismantling everything? Assuming some lubrication will solve everything, what should I "grease" it with?

On a phone and can only seem to upload one pic at a time, so here is the bolt.

And here is the clean chamber

Both sides!

I had that problem with mine and it turned out that the main spool valve needed resetting.you need to take vive out,dismantle and look for a spring and cap.when machine is overworked in knotty wood ,the cap moves up the spring thus limiting travel on spool valve,2 hours to strip valve out 10 min to reset.Rio denied that this was the problem but what do they know!

Hi Ian,

Thanks for calling yesterday and this morning,

As Biggarlogs has quite rightly suggested, and we discussed this morning. If the splitting channel/ram area is 100% clear, without any restrictions and the splitter valve requires assistance to move it. Then the chances are that the spring has either worn or come out of place within the valve.

I personally have only ever come across one other case of this in the past and the customer at the time sourced the spring from a local hydraulics shop. It’s certainly not a common fault given the number of WP machines we’ve sold.

We always stress to check the basic things first; I wasn’t in denial that it could be something other than a blockage. However the last thing I want to do is lead customers through the harder fault finding first and then work to the easy stuff.

I hope your sorted soon Ian and call if I can help

Jake, you may have spoken to another colleague during your experiance so apologies we couldn't get you sorted. It may have been the first time we'd come across this issue back then. The customer I spoke to some years ago was in Wales

BR

Calum @ Riko

01420 487300

It's the spring inside the valve needs replacing not a big job

This is the problem part

Thanks for the replies, all.

Still can't see how to get to the valve without dismantling 3/4 of the machine, but thankfully, spray grease to the rescue (lithium), and all is right with the world.

Think mine has developed the same problem. Any tips on getting into the valve to see?

Spring is fine on mine. What next?