School me on Hydraulics

Tscott9330 · Dec 8, 2008

My new grapple will be here on Friday, and when it arrives I need to get my hoses figured out. I am going to run the grapple thumb from the rear remotes of the tractor. So I will have 2 long hoses permanently routed from the rear remotes to the front of the loader.

I am used to tapered pipe thread and AN fittings on things like car fuel lines. The grapple is from Markham and will have hoses terminated with flat faced QD's.

What is the industry standard for fittings?

What type of hose will be needed? ( I plan to just mimic what I see on the grapple)

Is there any way to make these hoses myself, or is it all crimp type connections?

The QD's on either end of the hose will be simple, but what other fittings may be needed in between (i.e. 90 deg 45 deg etc. )?

Thanks,
Tom

kennyd · Dec 8, 2008

What is the industry standard for fittings?

Standard? I wish! There are quite a few! Like:
NPT
ORB
JIC
BSPP
Just to name some of them, But you will probably need to use just NPT's for your hoses, possibly JIC's.

What type of hose will be needed? ( I plan to just mimic what I see on the grapple)

1/4", 2-wire, Minimum 3000psi rated hydraulic hoses.

Is there any way to make these hoses myself, or is it all crimp type connections?

You will have to have them made at a hydraulic shop, tractor dealer, or some NAPA stores make them also.

The QD's on either end of the hose will be simple, but what other fittings may be needed in between (i.e. 90 deg 45 deg etc. )?

I have no way of knowing what you might need-you will have to figure that out yourself!

Take a look at these three sites to get familiar with the different types of fittings.
DHH
Hydraulic Store
Fast Fittings

And please do not be tempted to use regular plumbing stuff-it's not rated for the pressure your hydraulic system can produce!

Tscott9330 · Dec 8, 2008

Thanks for the quick reply, and the reference materials. Alot of that looks familiar. NPT of course and the JIC looks like and AN style fitting with a different angle. I would of course never dream of using standard plumbing fixtures. I am nieve not stupid

.

Tom

Wayne County Hose · Dec 8, 2008

If you found a good, friendly hydraulic shop like mine in your area, I'm sure you could bring your tractor there and they would do it for you and wouldn't mind teaching you how to do it and identify hose and fittings in the process. I do stuff like this all the time and as long as the installation isn't a real pain I do it just to get the hose sale, no labor charge.

BTW, JIC and AN are the same fitting, just different names. AN was developed for the military, Army Navy, hence AN. If you put an o-ring on a JIC male, you can use it as an O-ring thread fitting, same thread. NPT and British standard pipe parallel are NOT the same thread but will go together with a little effort. Don't mix them.

skipro3 · Dec 9, 2008

Instead of just 2 long hoses, make the hoses from your rear to front terminate at the bucket, then attach 2 shorter lines from the grapple ram to these lines, That way you can remove the grapple with relative ease and install another hydraulic devise up there in it's place; like an auger or log splitter. It does cost a little more, but much more versatile that way.

Measure the length of hoses you need by using a garden hose routed, then marked and removed for measurement. A decent tractor dealer or hydraulic shop will know exactly what size lines and fittings you should use. I used "2-wire" hydraulic line. It's a double braid. Since the line is so long and vulnerable in several spots, I wanted something that would last through my incompetency.

Tscott9330 · Dec 9, 2008

Instead of just 2 long hoses, make the hoses from your rear to front terminate at the bucket, then attach 2 shorter lines from the grapple ram to these lines, That way you can remove the grapple with relative ease and install another hydraulic devise up there in it's place; like an auger or log splitter. It does cost a little more, but much more versatile that way.

Good information. The Markham grapple is coming with a set of hoses already attached. These hoses are terminated in flat faced QD's. My plan is to run the hoses from the rear ports to the front of the loader and fabricate some sort of mount/bulkhead to hold them in place. Then the lines from the grapple will plug into the long ones on the loader.

I started a thread in the customization forum asking for pictures or descriptions of bulkhead mounts people have made, but have not received much response. If there are nay in the hydraulic section that have built their own bulkhead assemblies, I would love to see pictures to get the old creative juices flowing. I need to post pictures of my loader, later tonight.

If you found a good, friendly hydraulic shop like mine in your area, I'm sure you could bring your tractor there and they would do it for you and wouldn't mind teaching you how to do it and identify hose and fittings in the process. I do stuff like this all the time and as long as the installation isn't a real pain I do it just to get the hose sale, no labor charge.

I live in a pretty small town, so I think the local tractor dealer is my best bet but they can be a bit of a pain to work with, they are less than customer friendly in my opinion, but they may be my only choice. There is also a NAPA that may make hoses, but I have not checked yet.

BTW, JIC and AN are the same fitting, just different names. AN was developed for the military, Army Navy, hence AN. If you put an o-ring on a JIC male, you can use it as an O-ring thread fitting, same thread. NPT and British standard pipe parallel are NOT the same thread but will go together with a little effort. Don't mix them.

Thanks, good to know. I think I will stick with NPT if I can and JIC if needed.

Do you use a pipe dope or Teflon tape when assembling hydraulic NPT fittings?

Tom

Wayne County Hose · Dec 9, 2008

Do you use a pipe dope or Teflon tape when assembling hydraulic NPT fittings?

Bad question....bad, bad question. Sorry, not really a bad question. There was a lengthy discussion about this a while back. I won't get into it other than saying that I personally prefer the paste but either will work. Both have been used with good results so whatever you have laying around.

Personally, I would stay away from NPT and use JIC. Just my opinion. If you posted some pictures, we could help you much more.

If you live in a small town, you might want to ask around to see who other people are dealing with. There might be a hole in the wall shop that you don't know about. Most people that come to my shop for the first time tell me that they never knew I was here. I spent thousands on advertising but it goes right over people's heads until they need something so generally, hyd shops don't advertise. It's a waste of money. We go see the excavating contractors then most everything else is word of mouth.

Tscott9330 · Dec 9, 2008

Wayne County Hose said:
Bad question....bad, bad question. Sorry, not really a bad question. There was a lengthy discussion about this a while back. I won't get into it other than saying that I personally prefer the paste but either will work. Both have been used with good results so whatever you have laying around.

Yeah, sorry about that. I should have worded the question differently. What I really meant is are the fittings designed to use either of those products, and of course the answer is yes. That does indeed sound like one of those hot button forum questions, and I do not want to start one of those debates.

I am unable to post pictures at work, but I will try to post some this evening when I get home.

Thanks,
Tom

jgrreed · Dec 9, 2008

skipro3 said:
Instead of just 2 long hoses, make the hoses from your rear to front terminate at the bucket, then attach 2 shorter lines from the grapple ram to these lines, That way you can remove the grapple with relative ease and install another hydraulic devise up there in it's place; like an auger or log splitter. It does cost a little more, but much more versatile that way.

Would a 1/4 inch line, powered by a standard SCV (vs. a power beyond port) have enough flow to drive an auger, broom, or splitter?? I've thought of doing the same, but I was under the impression that you need 20+GPM for an auger, broom, or snowblower. Maybe a bit less for a splitter. Once I learn how to weld (sometime in 2015.....) I've been dreaming of a 3pt hitch mounted, PTO driven pump and reservoir (~25gallon with ~25 GPM pump), with a reversing circuit, that is connected via a hard line to the front of my loader to drive a hydraulically driven snowblower, broom, or auger. I know someone on TBN has built something similar, and it looks pretty cool!!

-Jer.

aczlan · Dec 9, 2008

jgrreed said:
Would a 1/4 inch line, powered by a standard SCV (vs. a power beyond port) have enough flow to drive an auger, broom, or splitter?? I've thought of doing the same, but I was under the impression that you need 20+GPM for an auger, broom, or snowblower. Maybe a bit less for a splitter. Once I learn how to weld (sometime in 2015.....) I've been dreaming of a 3pt hitch mounted, PTO driven pump and reservoir (~25gallon with ~25 GPM pump), with a reversing circuit, that is connected via a hard line to the front of my loader to drive a hydraulically driven snowblower, broom, or auger. I know someone on TBN has built something similar, and it looks pretty cool!

no, a 1/4" line would be WAY too small to run any decent size motor. the line would need to be much bigger, what you could do is put a pair of 3/4" (or whatever size you need) lines that go back to front, with QDs on both ends, then have a "jumper" that goes to your SCV (for a grapple or something) OR to a 3pt pump setup like you are talking about (for a PHD or whatever). the downside is that you would need to have 3 sets of QDs between your 3pt pump and the motor, the ones in the back, the ones to disconnect from the loader and the ones on the loader, as each QD slows down and warms the fluid it could be suboptimal unless you went up a size or two with your QDs.

Edit: if you made the 3pt setup I would suggest putting solenoids (perhaps variable ones) on it so that you could quickly disconnect the rig from the back, you could also (if you needed such a thing) have a "remote control" for the flow that could go with you.

Aaron Z