What should I do for the healthy operation of the hydraulic system?

Routine maintenance on your hydraulic system can alleviate performance problems and downtime, prolong hydraulic component life and reduce operating costs.

We’re confident that we’ll be able to help if things go wrong, but we’d rather help you get things right in the first place. Following the six simple steps and routines for a healthy hydraulic system below is time and money well spent.

Maintain optimal temperature and viscosity of the hydraulic fluids

You need to know the appropriate (minimum and maximum) fluid operating temperature and viscosity ranges for the ambient environment in which your hydraulic system is operating and then select a hydraulic fluid with a suitable viscosity grade and additives.

Keep your hydraulic fluid clean

Contamination is one of the most frequent causes of hydraulic equipment failure or malfunction. Therefore, selecting the right hydraulic filter is absolutely vital to ensure that particle contaminants are removed from the hydraulic fluid before components are jammed or damaged through abrasive wear. Remember that air is a contaminant too!

Maintain the manufacturer’s system settings

Maintain hydraulic system settings according to manufacturers’ specifications and build this into your own maintenance schedule as a minimum.

Follow the correct hydraulic system commissioning procedures

Don’t try and cut corners or you could inadvertently damage hydraulic components during their initial start-up, even though this damage may not always be apparent at the time.

Replace proactively

Always replace hydraulic components before they fail and cause further problems elsewhere in your hydraulic system.

If things do go wrong…

Conduct a full failure analysis to ensure that you learn from your findings and change your procedures accordingly. Don’t make the same mistake twice, or again after that.

Hydraulics Online’s repair service includes a free assessment where we will strip down your faulty unit and fully diagnose the extent of hydraulic repair work needed, providing an itemised quotation and details of how many parts can be salvaged and re-used before any work commences. Got a challenge?