diesel in hydraulic tank.....

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joninatree

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I accidentally filled up the wrong tank with diesel (and worse, no I wasn't drunk and don't have a good excuse).

Questions:

1) do hydraulic oil and diesel separate enough that I might be able to salvage any fluid when I drain the resevoir? Is the risk not worth the possible savings?

2) I ran it for several hours unknowingly; should I replace the filter?

3) It's a Bandit Model 150. On the hydraulic tank it reads "This machine is equipped with "Petro-Canada Hydrex-XV" hydraulic oil. Refill with same or equivalent. Refer to manual for use of "AW" oils." I don't have the manual nor could I find it online; what kind of hydraulic fluid should i use (ideally something i could find at walmart or auto parts store)?
 
Sorry to say they are mixed together nicely now. Drain tank and change filter,put proper oil in and all will be fine. We forgive you also for making mistake. We all do it sometimes. Welcome to AS too!:)
 
thanks for the replies so far.... so what hydraulic oil do you reckon I should flush and then refill with (given what the machine stated per my first post)?
 
Plain old Tractor supply "Traveller" Universal hydro should cover ya fine.

Stay safe!
Dingeryote
 
It happens. When our shop gets equipment back with that having happened, I drain the system, refill it with a lightweight (Telus 22ish), run it, and drain it again. Then refill.
 
Hey man I filled my brand new dump truck up with KEROSENE a few years back and the truck ran like a RAPED APE for a week , I didn't know til about a week later when I went to fill it up again and saw the red nozzle , Diesel in the hydro isn't that bad though , not to mention any names but I know someone who filled there brand new 450 diesel with gas a drove for about 30 miles until the truck conked on him ....
 
This just happened to me on a Komatsu CK30 skidloader it uses about 13 gallons of 30W oil for hydraulics and I think about 1+ gallons was put in it and run for maybe 2 hours, I drained what I could and refilled with synthetic 10w-30 and it ran fine until after 3 hours when the travel started giving problems. I will try and follow up on this once I've fixed the issue so we all can learn from it, new machines (without clear marking) and employees can make things expensive.
 
A question:

Could the diesel/Hydraulic oil mix be used as diesel fuel and added a gallon or so at a time when filling up with diesel?

I seems it should burn fine to me but I don't know. Warm weather use of course.
 
best to stick with the used stuff as fire starter..
any hyd piston drive pump or motor can score or have issues if the wrong hyd fluid is used...
the cool thing is it keeps me in biz! GRIN!
Giezel (heavy on the gasoline to diesel) has claimed a few injectors in the diesel engines!

i use diesel to clean the trash out of the hyd tanks when doing the big service on units..
it helps float the microscopic trash out of the hyd tank...
so if you do have diesel in the hyd tank..
i would drain down the whole system.
and clean the hyd tank real well... as well as the suction hoses to the pumps.
and replace the pickup suction strainers in the tank and the main hyd filters and high pressure filters and screens.
run for 50 hours and replace the hyd filters again.

that fine partial will trash the piston pumps as well as the wheel/ trac drive motors..
and it will impact in the kidney vane pumps as well..

it can get super expensive in a hurry!!
OH yea! diesel eats seals!!
there are lots of seals inside the whole hyd pump / motor system!
 
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