Despite his mother’s horror and protestations, my 18 year old son recently bought a motorcycle. It’s a Japanese, hog style machine. Ben would quite like a H.D. but that’s WAY out of his price range. The bike he got is 13 years old with 15,000 km (9,300 miles) on the dial. So he didn’t pay a lot for it. In … Read more
Hydraulics Troubleshooting: Do This First!
In The Hydraulic Troubleshooting Handbook, I explain 12 principles which must be adhered to in order to solve any hydraulic problem effectively. Troubleshooting Principle #1 is: check and eliminate the easy things first. The benefits of this mandatory first step are clearly illustrated by a troubleshooting situation I was involved in recently.
The machine in question had a complex … Read more
How To Prevent Failures of Hydraulic Maintenance
Would you part with $87 to save $70,000? This is a ‘no brainer’ for most of us, right?. Well, here’s a story for you:
I recently conducted failure analysis and a reliability audit on a 300 kW hydrostatic transmission. The hydraulic system was running a synthetic ester, biodegradable hydraulic fluid. This $45/gallon hydraulic fluid had been destroyed in under 12 … Read more