Are you ignoring the signs that your hydraulic system maybe contaminated? When was the last time you maintained it; taking oil samples, changing filters and breathers? If you have not maintained your hydraulic system you are gambling with the fact that at any time it could fail and you cannot get replacement parts quickly.
Keeping hydraulic systems clean and having optimum system reliability has been understood for many years. The problem is that a lot of this advice is ignored, why?
- Lack of knowledge and training.
- Lack of skilled personnel to undertake the work.
- No money in the budget to undertake the work.
- An attitude of ‘ it isn’t broken so we don’t need to touch it’.
There is plenty of knowledge around to help those not understanding hydraulic system contamination control and there are plenty of companies that can help to service and maintain. I believe there is a lack of foresight in the budgeting of maintenance tasks that ignores the needs of hydraulic systems. This is only likely to change if new staff are employed in those companies, with knowledge of hydraulics or there has been a big failure of a hydraulic system, in the past, that caused a lot of downtime and a high cost of repair.
Simple tasks such as changing filters when they are blocked, keeping the top of the fluid reservoir clean and taking oil samples, can all have a major effect on hydraulic system reliability. In a system that is maintained well, you can still have failures of components due to manufacturing or latent installation issues. It is not perfect, but it is well known that a clean hydraulic system is more than likely going to be very reliable.
Are you gambling with hydraulic system contamination and the potential for system failure?
