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Early failure of hydraulic components costs hydraulic equipment owners millions of dollars every year.

Up to 90% of these failures can be avoided - if you know how!

Let's face it, hydraulic components are expensive. So having to replace them more often than you need to really hurts. If you're an owner-operator, it hurts your pocket. If you're a maintenance manager or supervisor, it hurts your budget and causes downtime.
With over 25 plus years in the hydraulic repair industry, we know how these failures can be avoided – many of which involves taking preventive actions.

Common causes of early failure are:

Dirty oil - contamination is the invisible enemy

Oil is the life blood of a hydraulic system, yet a lot of equipment owners take it for granted. It’s common to see people filling up a system using a dirty funnel which has been given a quick wipe down with a rag if anything is used at all.

Dirt causes the most failures of hydraulic components by far, and mostly it’s not big bits of dirt but the smaller ones that do more damage, bits less than 40 microns (a human hair is approx. 70 microns and you can’t see anything smaller than 40 with the naked eye).  

Things you should do to keep your system clean are:

• Put in good quality clean hydraulic oil, there are a lot of cheap oils out there, they are cheap for a reason and you may only save money in the short term if you buy on price alone
• If possible pump your oil into the system through a filter, if not use only clean funnels (flushed out) and make sure the filler area is clean before you take the cap off
• Have a good fitting quality filler or breather, and make sure it says on. In a dirty environment you need a filter on the breather to stop dust being sucked in to the tank
• Check your filter regularly, filters are in the system to take out contaminants and keep the oil clean; depending on the system they can be anywhere from 2 to 40 micron rated. It’s preferable to have an indicator on the filter so you know when to change it
• Use quality filters, like oil, the cheap ones are not always the best. A quality brand will have a specific beta ratio and made to a ISO standard, they will also often have far more filter medium in them so will last longer and cost less in the long run. Money saved on cheap products could cost you a lot at some stage
• Carry oil condition monitoring, for important bits of plant this is a way of finding out what’s going on inside your system and picking up problems before they turn catastrophic. We can help you set up and run a monitoring programme and recommend intervals etc. This can also mean longer times between oil changes and therefore save you money!!

If you want us to have a look at your system and advise you on your oil or filtration needs, then call us on 0800 339832 or email Paul on pdewar@dewtec.co.nz 

Lack of maintenance - how much will a break down cost you?

For some reason people service their car or forklift regularly, but completely forget about their hydraulic systems. Power packs are often hidden away under the machine or in a corner and, as they keep going, they are forgotten about. 

All hydraulic systems require periodic checks and some form of maintenance; be it filter changes or adjustments. Exactly what or how often this is required will be determined by the type of equipment, components used or the amount of use. 

It’s far cheaper to fix it before it becomes a bigger problem. We can provide you with money saving tips and advice, call us on 0800 339832 or email Paul at pdewar@dewtec.co.nz for a free assessment.