Common Types of Preventative Maintenance for Hydraulic Pumps & Motors
Hydraulic pumps and motors power today’s heavy industrial and commercial-use equipment and machinery. Adopting a comprehensive maintenance schedule isn’t just about keeping machinery working; it’s also about reducing costs, ensuring worker safety, and extending equipment and machinery service life.
Without a maintenance schedule, your equipment and machinery risk catastrophic failures. These failures can shut down production, making further repairs more expensive and much more time-consuming.
In this article, we’ll cover what maintenance items to include when you’re developing a schedule/program for your hydraulic pumps and motors.
Regular Inspection & Monitoring
Visual inspections and continuous monitoring are essential to any maintenance program. You’ll want to visually inspect the outside of equipment and machinery for oil leaks at the beginning and end of each shift.
Leaks are often caused by improperly sized, damaged, ripped, or torn O-rings, seals, and spacers. However, they can also be caused by internal pump damage or cracked, worn, or twisted hoses, weak pipe connections, and damaged or malfunctioning couplers. Regularly checking pipes, couplers, hoses, and fittings ensures a clean, contaminant-free hydraulic system.
Leaks also manifest themselves in reduced pump pressure and hydraulic system performance. Keep an eye out for pressure loss while being vigilant of any banging or rattling noises that could indicate potential component failure.
- Monitor for Leaks Every Day
- Regularly Inspect Pipes, Couplers, Hoses, & Fittings
- Monitor Changes in Pressure, Temperature, & Flow Rate
Fluid Management
Perform regular oil level inspections to ensure your hydraulic pump doesn’t experience cavitation and pressure loss due to low or insufficient oil levels.
Additionally, never deviate from the manufacturer’s suggested oil type, which has a specific viscosity level that ensures proper lubrication throughout the pump’s internal components. Using oil with too high a viscosity can lead to cavitation issues, reduced flow rates, and decreased pump efficiency. If the viscosity is too low, you risk extensive damage to pump components due to increased friction.
Testing hydraulic fluids and pump oil for potential contamination is also essential to protecting the entire pump and ensuring water, metal shavings, and other contaminants don’t damage the pump. Off-white, milky oil colors are often the results of water contamination, while darker colors and strong burning odors usually indicate oil past its service life, so ensure your technicians know what to look for.
- Inspect Oil Level
- Always Use Manufacturer-Recommended Oil Type
- Test Hydraulic Fluids & Oil for Contamination
Component Maintenance
Not all issues appear on the outside of the hydraulic pump, so internal component inspections are critical, too. Among the more important aspects of component maintenance include regularly replacing worn seals, O-rings, and gaskets to maintain pressure, prevent leaks, and improve pump efficiency. Always use properly sized O-rings, gaskets, and seals by measuring groove depth on flanges.
When replacing seals, use a lint-free cloth to wipe down oiled components. Then, visually inspect your cylinders, cylinder blocks, pistons, bearings, or other components for corrosion, cracks, and surface fractures.
Regularly replacing filters is also important. Hydraulic systems typically have filter monitors or gauges. These devices monitor the amount of contaminants and debris filters have captured. Once filters have reached their threshold, a warning signal or pop-up indicator shows the filter needs changing.
- Replace Worn Seals, O-rings, & Gaskets
- Visually Inspect Cylinders, Cylinder Blocks, Pistons, & Bearings for Physical Damage
- Replace Dirty Filters
System Calibration
A properly calibrated hydraulic pump system is one where pump pressure is optimized for improved performance. Make pump pressure and flow checks part of your maintenance program. Never exceed the equipment or machinery’s pressure ratings. Exceeding those pressure ratings can lead to high pump temperatures, potentially putting your entire system at risk of failure.
Valve adjustments and periodic valve calibration ensure consistent operation. Damaged or improperly calibrated check valves on hydraulic systems can cause severe system issues as oil is often diverted back into the system.
- Check Pump Pressure & Flow
- Ensure You Aren’t Exceeding Pressure Ratings
Preventative Coatings
Using corrosion-resistant protective coatings on pump and system components helps reduce excessive wear and tear while helping prolong component life.
Given the type of environments and temperatures hydraulic systems operate under and the type of chemicals they encounter, ensuring proper corrosion protection is among the more proactive maintenance steps you can adopt.
Additional solutions include using protective covers to shield exposed and sensitive parts. These covers are impact-resistant solutions that protect your hydraulic system from external debris and contamination.
- Use Protective Coatings or Covers to Prevent Corrosion & Impact Damage
Planned Downtime
Lastly, this is perhaps the most important maintenance tip you can practice. Given the repeated demands and constant use of hydraulic equipment and machinery, not having scheduled downtime and extensive maintenance is not a risk worth taking.
While maintaining operations and production is critical, being proactive with scheduled downtime ensures your company isn’t faced with extensive lost time due to damaged machinery, so always schedule system-wide maintenance during non-production hours.
Stick to a predetermined schedule and don’t simply schedule downtime maintenance during slow production periods. It’s during peak production when hydraulic equipment and machinery are most needed, so having planned downtime at predetermined intervals keeps your team focused on maintenance.
- Schedule Planned Downtime During Non-Production Hours
Get Help From Panagon Systems
Founded over 25 years ago, Panagon Systems is an industry-leading manufacturer of aftermarket hydraulic pumps, motors, and replacement parts for Vickers by Danfoss and Rexroth and a repair service provider. Please contact us today if you’re experiencing issues with your hydraulic pumps or motors or need help planning your plant maintenance program.
