the tire only rubbed through the rubber sheath and not the stainless mesh

Mine's been like that for 3 yrs and hasn't leaked. I just loosened the fitting and turned the hose more inward to gain clearance.

I don't have a photo of the actual rub, but here's a photo of how I have them routed, and it doesn't hit anymore.

As far as replacing the hose, I believe it's pretty straight forward. You don't have to drain the fluid. You'll lose a little bit as you remove the hose, but nothing to worry about. After replacement, start the tractor and turn the steering wheel full left and full right a bunch of times and it'll bleed the air out.

 

Hi All
I have had to replace a couple of hoses(steering has been ok) due to bad manufacturing fault and low Quality. I use double braided hose with reusable end fittings. This way I can make them the correct length for the job, not the supplied lenght which I have some times found a bit long.
Regards John

 

I had one wear through last summer. The leaking fluid atomized on the hot manifold and produced a puff of white smoke when I turned the wheel. It was dripping raw fluid and that told us the leak was happening. A great neighbor dropped by and showed us how to remove the fitting/hose. A local hardware store built the replacement hose - I purchased a wrapper to place between the replacement hose and the front I-beam where the wear was occurring.
As I recall, we lost at most a couple of ounces of fluid. I operated the tractor this afternoon in the hot and humid weather and without incident.

Brian

 

I should have also posted that the locally built replacement hose was precisely the length of the original one, no order and hope for the best.

 

My 1026r also had a steering hose where the rubber was abraded down to the steel. I losened the fitting adjusted the line and went about my business. Held up fine for a year or so. Then after I tore a loader line in some freak brush accident (vine entangled itself on loader hose) I found out that JD only uses single braided line. Thats just really cheap. Shame on you JD. Just about everybody uses double braid. It goes from outside in: Rubber outside, steel braid, another layer of rubber, steel braid then the final rubber core.

On double braid the outer most rubber coating is a mild abrasion deterent and a rust deterent. Lots of old machines with not much rubber on the lines still working because there is another layer of rubber and steel on the inside below that rusty exposed braid you see on the outside. So thats a long winded way of saying if you see any exposed braid its probably best to replace the hose. Plastic anti abrasion line works great. Tho I did have luck adjusting mine so it didn’t rub.

 

Thanks, all, for the feedback - good background information on replacement hoses. @kylew - thank you for the pics on how you re-routed the lines. I found out from the manager at my dealer that JD started running the lines in a similar fashion with new 1023/1025 models a couple years ago - I guess they do pay attention (sometimes).