When you are in the heavy equipment business, every minute that you are running means money. At the same time every second your equipment is down due to a blown hydraulic seal can cost you hundreds of dollars. This means that you cannot afford to have a single piece of your equipment sitting for any length of time whatsoever, other than when it is not scheduled to be used.

Of all the causes of downtime with heavy equipment, leaking hydraulic seals and broken cylinders are the most common. Even more common is the number of pieces of machinery that continue to be operated with hydraulic fluid dripping from leaky seals. No matter how you look at this situation, it is going to continue to cost your company money until you have the necessary repairs performed.

While most operators are aware of the fact that their equipment is going to develop these leaks, they are perhaps not quite so aware of the cause of the failures that can be so costly in terms of parts, repairs and downtime. If you want to reduce these costs, you have to get to the root cause of them and use high quality seals for the repairs to ensure that you get the maximum life possible out of your hydraulic cylinders.

Many of the problems begin during the installation of the seals and then continue to develop over time, until the leaks become significant or the seal simply blows out and causes equipment failure. By far the biggest cause is a lack of cleanliness during the installation process. When a new hydraulic seal is being installed, everything must be as clean as humanly possible.  A single piece of grit in the wrong place can act like sandpaper and score the ram or cut the seal.

This is followed by nicking or cutting the seal during installation. It is far too easy to cause a small cut or nick in the seal when it is being put in place or the ram is being installed. Both of these problems are easily avoided by ensuring that everything is kept perfectly clean during the installation process and that the new seals are properly lubricated before they are installed to ensure that the ram does not move on a dry seal.

Other than this, many mechanics like to over tighten the seal gland when it folds over the lip, which in turn causes a lead and on occasion it is possible that through lack of attention the seals can be installed upside down or the wrong seals end being installed. All of these problems are caused by human negligence or inattention. All of these are easily avoided as they require a mechanic that is on top of his game during the entire repair process.

Even if the right seals are being used and every precaution has been taken to install them correctly, they are still likely to leak at some point in time. There are several causes for this as well, one of which is contaminated hydraulic fluid. Far too many mechanics will check the rams for score marks, clean absolutely everything from the ram to the cylinder prior to the installation of the new seals only to forget to drain the fluid or at the very least install a new filter.

Over time the hydraulic fluid is going to collect dirt, grit and metal shavings, even ice and water. All of these can cause heavy contamination that will work its way past the wiper seal and start to grind on the fluid seals. This in turn leads to damage of the seal and the ram that can easily be seen upon routine inspection and will definitely lead to leaks.

Even if the technician follows all the right steps and ensures that he has installed the new hydraulic seals to the best of his ability, there is still one major problem that seems to plague heavy equipment operators and cause leaks that could have been easily prevented. This is the use of seals that are made from the wrong materials. When the wrong seal materials are used, it can lead to softening of the seal materials, shrinkage or swelling of the entire seal, all of which can lead to catastrophic failure.

When you need to buy new hydraulic seals and have a choice of materials so that you know you are getting the right seals for your heavy equipment, Hercules has what you need. We are an ISO 9001 registered distributor of hydraulic seals, pneumatic seals, seal kit and ready to use cylinders for both mobile and industrial applications.