Purging milky oil from system

[Soundguy]

Here is a turnkey centrifuge for home use... The claim it can process up to 5 gal per hour.

Simple Centrifuge ...putting a centrifuge in every garage!

It is $1500

iran may be looking for a few..

 

[pat32rf]

We aren't talking about a HST operation here but a simple log splitter.
Just heat the oil to steam/boil off the moisture then dump it back in and try the result. I'm sure that a large pot and some means of fueling the fire are available.......

We are paying over $50 for 20l of cheap hydraulic oil here in central Ontario....THF is even more.
PS- can you tilt the unit a bit so the drain plug is at the very bottom corner of the tank?

 

[Soundguy]

is atf oil any cheaper? or 0w30 / 10w motor oil?

for a log splitter.. any of those would likely work, especially in cold weather.. atf would be my choice for the anti-foam adds..

 

[muddstopper]

I cant comment on the effectiveness of boiling oil to remove moisture, but I do know that there is equipment available that does heat, spin and filter the oil. We use such a machine where i work. When you have several hundred pieces of very large hydraulic using machines, hydraulic oil can be a very big expense. Hydraulic parts expenses can also be very big as a result of dirty oil, or moisture contamination. The machine in question sucks the used oil from the hydraulic tanks, circulates it thru 5micron filters, heats it to remove the moisture and then it is pumped back into the equipments hydraulic tanks. This machine can be equiped with filters so fine it will take the red out of the ATF, but I believe 5micron is as small as they ever use. It also comes with all kinds of electronic testing stuff, ( that I know nothing about how they work), that tests the oil for cleaningness and dryness. Considering this piece of equipment has to be hualed on the back of a 2ton truck and I havent a clue as to what it might cost, ( I bet very expensive), its probably not something one might see on a regular construction site.

 

[bigdeano]

About 10 years ago I got a lot of water in my tractor hydraulic oil. I use ATF which also lubes the rear end gears. Got in the loader and backhoe too. I just used a big stainless cooking pot and an electric hotplate outdoors to boil the water out of the oil. It's easy to see when it's done by the color. It only costs a few cents to run a 1500 watt hotplate for an hour, much cheaper than replacing the oil.

I had to flush everything out several times and reboil the oil before all the water was gone. I put the oil back in and it's been working fine for 10 years. I saved quite a bit of money by reusing it. After cleaning the pot very well it works fine for cooking too.

 

[J_J]

I can allmost bet that the composition of the ATF is not the same as you originally installed.

It would be interesting to see the comparison analysis of new ATF, and ATF that had been cooked many times. There is no way you could have got rid of the new compound generated by the water in the fluid.

Just because it is usable to you, does not necessarily make it a suitable fluid for the parts.

You can probably use just about any kind of mineral or motor oil to work most hydraulics.

My hyd machine used 10W-40 and to me works just fine, and none of the other machines like mine have had trouble with the motor oil as the hyd fluid of choice. I doubt that my fluid has the same additives as when new, and I would only know this by a complete oil analysis.

I believe the motor oil was chosen by the fact of the greater temp range over hyd fluid, and the avaliable of motor just about anywhere.

 

[Redbug]

Hey...Where'd JJ get that pic of Santa Clause?

 

[J_J]

The other day, being in the Christmas spirit, I said HO, HO, HO, to this fine looking woman and she slapped the h**l out of me. I said what did you do that for, and she said you didn't have to say it three times.

 

[wdchyd]

There was roughly 10 gals of clear oil in my reservoir of my hydraulic winch.

After hooking up my just built log splitter, The oil changed to something that looks like egg nogg. The water had to be in the cylinder before installation ( 4'' dia. 40 '' long when closed).
I have since drained and replaced the oil three times, used maybe 15 gals to do this.

At present the oil is still white, not egg nogg... but definitely not clear.

So my friends thats a long winded attempt to say that I don't think it takes much to make a mess.

I attached a pic. not great, but you can see the milky oil jar in the bottom of the image

Kinda late in the conversation, but did you test the oil to see if it was indeed water in the oil........especially where this is a recent start-up

I only say this cuz air-entrainment through a vacuum leak at suction hoses/fittings/pump shaft seal ect will make the oil white and foamy like you are showing.........Milky oil (from water) and foamy oil (from whipped up air) will look similar

Just an observation.........

 

[J_J]

I agree with wdchyd on the air entrapment, so wait about 24 hrs and look again, and if the fluid looks normal, then you have a suction leak. If it stays milky looking, it is probably emulsified water and oil, and should be removed ASAP.

Excerpt:

When these air bubbles go through the filter elements, they create bigger channels, allowing contaminants to pass through without being captured, and dropping filtration performance of the oil filters.