Ooooo, I hate that!

I just had a hydraulic hose spray me head to toe. Really good spraying, too. Like a sprinkler. Why is it that hydraulic fluid instantly plugs all of your pores and makes it feel 20 degrees hotter than it actually is? Never mind that the humidity is about 80% as it is.

I just ran through the shower and started the washing machine. Right smack in the middle of the day. I can still feel hydraulic on my legs. I probably could have charged some city boy $200 for the conditioning my skin just got.

As I was getting in the shower I heard a scream from across the house - "I hope you don't think you will be putting those clothes in my washing machine!" My response? "Of course not! - they are already in there..."

always wondered why when the hose blows out, it always seems to be pointing in the direction you are at.

I went out on a call to fix a electric over hydraulic garbage compactor. "what's wrong" " door won't open" " OK " so picked up the hand control and pressed the open button. I heard an awful scream and looked to see what it was all about, that's when I found out why the door wouldn't open, it had a a big hole in the up hose. That idiot was right in the way and got soaked from head to toe.
Walt

Ever notice that when you are grilling, the smoke will blow right in your face - no matter where you move to?
Probably some law of nature in both cases........

Customer had a new hose made up for his machine some years back. The line was a one inch main line off the main hydraulic pump, and carried about 25 gpm. To complete setting the stage it was a PC150 Komatsu excavator with a sliding glass in the back right corner of the cab.

Guy said he had just started back to work and felt something strange on the back of his neck, and then started feeling fluid raining down all over him. It took him a few seconds to realize what was going on. Seems the end of the new hose had blown out of the fitting, and the curve or it had laid it right through the sliding window. What had happened was the place that made the hose neglected to crimp the end properly, so it pushed out when the system pressure got high enough. The end result was he was getting the full flow from the pump splashing around in the back of the cab and all over him.

Realizing what was happening, he bailed out of the cab before he got any more oil on him than he already had. He said the only thing about that was just about the time his feet hit the ground he had a thought...."Hey dummy, you"ve got to get back into the cab to cut the machine off". Needless to say between the initial drenching, and the additional he received getting back into shut the machine down, he looked like a drowned rat.

In the end I guess he got cleaned of just fine, and the place that made the hose had to foot the bill to have the interior of the machine cleaned and/or replaced...along with remaking the hose they had screwed up and replacing the oil lost as a result.

It can be even more serious- guy was on a tractor, high pressure hose ruptured next to his leg while under load, and drove a thin stream of hydraulic fluid through the skin and into his calf. Long recuperation period, and it looked for awhile that he would lose the leg. He's still not completely right.

"As I was getting in the shower I heard a scream from across the house - "I hope you don't think you will be putting those clothes in my washing machine!" My response? "Of course not! - they are already in there..."

You must have an exceptionally good woman...you LIVED to tell this.! lol!

BTDT except I found out what a glazed donut with sprinkles feels like when I slipped on the fluid and fell on the ground while getting off the tractor.

I have an Oliver 1650 and the cap to the hydraulic tank is right in front of the seat and that popped off when I was using the loader and I had a whole tack of hydraulic fluid on me

Only took Me 40 years to finger out why the smoke does that, when you stand in ft off the fire or grill you are blocking the wind, smoke can't be blown away.

Knew a fella that got sprayed in the eyes with a full blast of hydraulic oil when a hose blew. He ended up legally blind with just a little eyesight. Be careful out there!

And I know a guy who lost half of his arm from hydraulic oil piercing the skin.
I know this didn't happen to the original poster, but skin being pierced by hydraulic oil is SERIOUS and should be looked at by the medical field immediately.

Funny, when I worked at an underground sand mine, the night maintenance guy was training a fellow, he showed him how to make a new hose for the Cannon Drill, (this drill was hydraulic hose he!!) everything was run on hydraulic, well a hose went bad that went from the cab out to the stands that pick the whole drill up, the new guy didn't get the hose into the fitting very far and it was the end in the cab, the drill operator raised it up, the cylinders hit the end and POOF, oil spraying all over in the cab, enough oil from 4 six inch cylinders until it hit the ground again, the drill operator got three days off for his language on the radio. Thanks for the memory!

I did that one time. My good woman made me buy her a new machine.

Same reason trees always fall into the field you're farming instead of back into the timber or brush row.

While in the Army they changed over hydraulic fluid to fire retardant hydraulic fluid. Stuff is really nasty. Known carcinogen. Got medevac'd when the hydraulic manifold for the turret let go at 1700PSI, me, the loader and gunner were all loaded I a chopper and flown to the hospital where we had to shower 3 times and then were checked out. Was a strange experience. They did a free exchange on our boots and Nomex fire retardant uniforms.

Rick

At least it wasn't brake fluid!
I think glycol based fluids feel even worse.

I've been lucky with leaking hydraulic hoses, worse I saw was Dad had his car carrier home (company truck he got back from Illinois to "early" to report back to the terminal for another load so it stayed out at the farm overnight) He was showing us kids how it worked, as he was explaining that this lever moves the ramps around so you can haul 9 Volkswagens instead of 8 Oldsmobiles a hose blew off and drenched my brother, about that time Dad explained they don't haul many Volkswagens.

Running a Toro Greensmower 3 (a new one at that) I was up on #8 green (everything always happened on #8 green) noticed an extra whosh when I hit the reel lift pedal, after the 3 passes, while watching for where the whosh was coming from I noticed my pants were getting wet, seems one of the hoses on the reel lift circuit wasn't crimped well and was spraying oil out from under the seat whenever you lifted the reels. Toro bought us some oil, a new hose and me lunch because I caught it before it broke all the way and killed grass.

Best one at the golf course was we had a Roseman Hydra Gang (Think a Ford 3000 tractor with 7 hydraulic drive reel mowers bolted on to it. The reels ran off of a PTO pump with a 30 gallon oil tank behind the seat, various arms and bars lifted the mowers) One of our genius turf grass students was mowing rough with it and hit a tree, cleaving off two reels. He didn't notice and ran about another 1/2 mile until it ran our of Hydraulic fluid. Then he noticed one reel was completely gone and one was being dragged along peeling up sod. A lot of dead grass from that one!

When I was a kid the next farm over got hold of a real service staton grease gun. The one that you hook to an air hose! Big bucket of grease to pump from. Yup the guy shot himself in the finger with it. Guess that is why he always was giving everyone the "bird" all of the time. Almost had to have the finger removed; just ended up stiff as a steel bar for the rest of his life.

I worked in under ground hard rock mines for over 40 yrs. The loaders used UG are all hydraulic. the operators cab is pretty tight and the steering hoses run from under the steering wheel thru an opening and into the main body of the loader. As everyone knows hydraulic oil gets hot, especially so in an underground mine. Well, I had a steering hose break right above my lap. Ever try to emergency stop one of those loaders and get out of a tight cab quickly? You can't. Google LHD loader.

(quoted from post at 15:36:47 06/02/14) Knew a fella that got sprayed in the eyes with a full blast of hydraulic oil when a hose blew. He ended up legally blind with just a little eyesight. Be careful out there!

Click to expand...

i was going to say, when it happened to me i was driving with bucket full of dirt. i didn't know what happened, i just instinctively closed my eyes and hit the brakes. i used my soaked t-shirt to wipe my face, shut it down and went to see what had happened. as i recall, i spent the next few minuets saying something like shucks and oh darn, yea, something like that.

Richard:

I also worked underground; in a Borate Mine in Death Valley, CA . One of my first jobs as an underground mechanic was to replace the main hydraulic return line on the UNDERSIDE of a DOSCO Continuous Miner (Roadheader). The Dosco was in 4 feet of soupy mud and now had 300 gallons of scalding hot Hydraulic Oil added to the mess. As I was the only one skinny enough to fit into the crawl space under the machine, I got elected to make the repair. I grabbed a few tools and had to dive into the hot soup and swim under the machine to a small air pocket, to where I could remove and replace the ruptured 3 inch diameter return line.

Doc
Union Certified Top Millwright / Mine Maintenance Mechanic

Had a jd 40 industrial like an MT, only with a better hood, LOL! Was pushin dirt for a neighbor when the pressure line to the loader valve parted, and whipped around like a blacksnake, and before I could think, or blink, I had a lap full of about 2 gallons of hyd oil. I never thought that 2 HP engine (JK, LOL!) could pump that much oil, in the time it took me to get to the ign switch, to kill the motor. Burnt the pants and t shirt in the woodstove, on the next cold day...