Bulk engine & hydraulic oil statiion

[JBGASH]

Here is my engine oil and hydraulic oil dispensers, went to a meeting on hydraulic fluids at Cat dealer and they told us that hydraulic oils should be run through a filter that will remove all particulates down to 2 microns to safeguard the hydraulic systems of today's machines. So I installed a hydraulic filter in the dispenser for the hydraulic fluid to do just that. How does everyone else handle bulk hydraulic and engine oils? I have always thought that new oil & fluids would be OK to go directly in the machines, but Cat says it is best to filter it, to be on the safe side.....

 

[DigDug]

Ive never heard of it or done it with new hydraulic oil. Im curious now and will read up on it. Thanks

 

[Nige]

If you think that oils as supplied by your oil company/distributor are "clean" (and by that I mean they meet the recommended ISO Cleanliness standard to be used in machines) then think again ............ filling clean oil into machines, and more importantly keeping it clean after you've got it in there, is literally a science all in itself. Improving the cleanliness of say a hydraulic oil can increase the life of a pump for example by maybe double. A lot of return for what when we do the math is an insigificant investment even if it is a telephone number in our case. All our oils get re-filtered constantly in our tank farm before they ever get near a machine.

OK, I work in the "Big" end of the market - mining. But we invest 6-figure sums into getting oil clean in the first place, and similar amounts into keeping it clean by using techniques like kidney loop filtration at PM Time if necessary.

The attached photos show what a filter looked like after 24 hours of continuous running recirculating oil from a 7,000 gallon final drive/diff oil tank that everyone who expressed an opinion said was "clean". You decide if you'd want to put that oil straight into a machine ............

 

[JBGASH]

Nige, For hydraulic fluid, do you filter down to 2 micron size? and what is done with engine crankcase oil?

 

[Nige]

We don't filter to 2-micron, or any other size for that matter. We have enough invested in it that we have a particle counter and we run the continuous loop filter until the oil is at least one ISO Cleanliness level lower than that recommended. Then we consider the oil in the bulk tank clean and shut off the system until we get another oil delivery. The recommended ISO is 16/13, we go down to 15/12 or even 14/11 and consider the oil "clean" at that point.

The filters in that photo are rated at 0.8-micron nominal (traps 50% of particles between 0.8 & 3 micron) and 3-micron absolute (traps 98.7% of particles greater than 3 micron). But remember that this each EACH PASS and we loop the oil through the filter continuously until we achieve the desired cleanliness level.

We don't filter engine oil. Engines produce so much crap anyway as by-products of combustion that it's not worth the trouble.

 

[ValleyFirewood]

The material didn't come from the pumps, valves or piping on the filters?

As far as bulk oil I don't mess with it, 5 gal pails for hydro and gal or 5 gal for engine oil. Too much hassle dealing with drums and the cost isn't much cheaper.

Granted I'm not dealing with equipment that uses half a tanker of oil either.

 

[Nige]

The tank that filter was hooked up to had been in service for 5 years. Maybe a large part of the particles were from the bottom of the tank but I shudder to think what could happen if one or two of them were sucked up with the oil and dropped into a hydraulic system. The fact was they were there, and the filter got rid of them. Job done as far as I'm concerned.

IMHO what comes out of any brand-new sealed 5-gallon pail or 55-gallon drum for that matter could not be regarded as clean.

Ask the oil companies if they can supply oil that meeets ISO 16/13 and their answer will be "yes but it will cost you extra". That's why we filter new bulk oils.

 

[Pyro4x4]

From my experience there are lots of places using bulk oils that don't need them. Those storage tanks get funky inside and are never cleaned. When I say funky I mean particles like pictured above to condensation and bacteria and fungal growth. All of this funk then gets pumped not your machinery. I was trained to never advise a bulk tank for a customer when a drum or replaceable tote will work. However some customers need bulk tanks. I'd say you would never go wrong with extra filtration.

 

[Moremph]

What kind of pump system is that in them tanks. are you just pressurizing the tank?

 

[lantraxco]

I can't speak for recent experience, but I have seen at an oil distrubutor (name brand) warehouse a couple guys filling 5 gallon buckets with AW46 hydraulic and popping lids on them, as well as the peel and stick labels. They were filling them with a nozzle and hose from a tank truck, which had been filled from their ugly, rusty on the outside anyway, bulk tanks. If you think that pail of oil you bought is clean, pop the lid after you empty it and I'll bet you a beer there's black sediment in the bottom.

:my2c

 

[Pyro4x4]

Lantraxco, Amen. One of my customers has lots of CAT equipment under warranty. I walked I one day to see several pallets of gallon buckets of hydraulic oil with the CAT label on the floor. I asked about it and learned it was free required "special oil" from cat for some new equipment. I didn't think much about it. A week later when I called on the same customer he told me his diesel/oils rep told him they had filled them out of their bulk tank for CAT so when the warranty ran out he would still be able to supply the oil to him. The product in the buckets was their everyday chevron AW46 relabeled for CAT. This is a very common practice.