Preheating splitter hyraulic fluid

Hey I think I speak for many of us when I say thank you for typing all that out. There is nothing like experience, and I know I appreciate knowing what can be used as an all around fluid...summer and winter.

One question though: I have trouble with my bulldozer starting because of oil being pumped through the reverser continuously. Do you have any experience with that T-22 oil in bulldozers? I hesitate to use that in that application only because the reverser clutches are subjected to so much dynamic forces. On the John Deere 350C's and 350D's (I have a 350D), the reverser oil also gets pumped back to the turning clutches to help cool them, but they run in their own wet clutch bath of separate oil (though John Deere 303 normally too).

 

The fluid is old but no milk and has a recent filter.

 

Brad Penn Di-Electric Blue. 0W Arctic hydro oil. The ski resorts around here run it in groomers so the oil distributors always have it in stock.
One of my Rolloff trucks requires winter oil and this is the spec the manufacturer recommends .
I still have some issues on the first run of the day @ -20 temps
Usually after 1-2 cycles it works fine.
I have an old power steering pump setup with a filter housing and electric motor so that I can pump and filter out of dirty pails into clean pails to recycle it for the next cold season

 

So I'm on the road and was pulling pics off the camera that I use for field work tonight and came across this gem. Seems one of the girls got her hands on the camera this weekend and was trying to communicate to stick it, change it, heat it, whatever but these stacks have got to grow. Appreciate all the input on this...seems like hitting the tank with heat isnt necessarily wrong given how little it gets used and waiting until it warms up is a pretty reasonable solution if heat to the tank doesnt work.

 

I primarily deal with powered pallet jacks, forklifts, boom lifts, scissor lifts, telehandlers (zoom booms), a few wheel loaders here and there, and the odd sea container handler. I don't want to tell you it's ok to put T22 in your dozer, because I just don't deal with them. Sorry bud...I'm not going to be much help on that one.

 

How about a build thread for that trailer/splitter blacksmith?

 

I probably will, but its not happening until spring. My wife parks her van in the garage in the winter. Pulling it outside to do little day jobs is one thing....but Im not going to set everything up and then have to pull it all apart several times just to get the van back in there. This is of course all dependant on me actually doing the build myself. If some screaming deal on a suitable tandem axel comes along, Ill buy it and modify it instead. One way or the other, by mid next summer, there will be a trailer mounted splitter in my hot little hands.

 

Im lucky enough to only process when the weather is nice. Plenty of decent winter days in my area. Very few in the summer though. IMHO, it’s worse at 100F than 1F.

 

I remember one time the field service coordinator wanted this Genie boom lift brought inside so the engineering company could do the annual non destructive testing on it. I think it was around -40C and I said "You don't want me to get that thing going today." A bit of an argument ensued and then another tech came in. I said "She wants me to get that Genie out there going." He didn't even bat an eye and said "You don't want to try and get that going this morning." Well crap...she went off the deep end. I said "FINE !"....I went out and started heating up the oil pan..the block...the propane tank...around and around we go with a propane torch for about 45 minutes. I hit the start button and it protested but finally fired. It was still chocking its way up to idle speed, and BANG.....it blew the end right off the pump...red fluid everywhere. I went back inside and said "There...hope you're happy. I got it to start...and now there's oil all over the place AND you need a $2000 pump on top of the inspection...and walked out. Hell..don't listen to me. I'm only an old mechanic that's been doing this stuff all his life. LOL.