Wrong hydraulic oil added, now what?

I finaly found a good excavator at the right price, Hitachi EX60. I was about to cut the guy a check today when he mentioned the machine basicly even had all new hydraulic oil (He replaced the seals in the center joint and lost quite a bit of the old fluid). I asked what he used to top it up with and he said "the cheapest 32w hydraulic oil the store had, why?."

I've heard something about Deere/Hitachi needing exclusively special acidic zinc free hydraulic oil that is not compatible with traditional alkali hydraulic oils. Did he completly bugger the whole hydraulic system? Would you have to purge and drain the entire system? How would one even do that?

I'm really dissapointed. Is this a salvagable situation or should I just let this be someone elses problem.

Thanks,

Rich

Well we never had problems runnin hyd 32 in our hitachis or deeres. Can't see it harming anything.

Hitachi recommend their own brand 46HN hydraulic oil that is zinc-free. My experience is only with the larger machines and they do no react well at all to zinc-based oils. Maybe the smaller ones are more tolerant, perhaps someone else could chime in on that one.

There are other zinc-free oils on the market, Conoco Ecoterra is one.

The fact is that the 32W oil in the machine is a viscosity grade lower than what it should be running, so the fact is that it really needs replacing with the correct grade of oil no matter what. Can you find out how much the system holds and how much he used to top it off after the repairs..? That might give a better indication if the situation is recoverable or if you would be better walking away from it.

Regarding viscosity there would be a big difference running 32 in Canada compared to California where the OP is based. In that climate I'd go for a 46.

ALL of our deere equipment at work 55-60 loaders and excavators along with everything else we have, hundreds of pieces, all get 32w oil. Doesn't seem to affect them at all, I have no doubt however that deere tells you to use their oil......

I'm not saying at all that you MUST use Deere oil, despite what Hitachi/Deere may recommend/insist on. What I'm saying is that in my experience (to which I added a caveat that it's regarding the larger models) if you don't use a zinc-free hydraulic oil on Hitachi machines (Deere I have no idea TBH) you are simply asking for trouble. There are many zinc-free oils on the market, I mentioned Conoco above, also Mobil makes one, as does Shell, probably others do to. Guess what the only difference between an AW32 zinc-free & a standard oil is (surprise, surprise) the additive package. Both are 32 hydraulic oils, it's only when you look deeper you find out what the differences are. It may be your fleet of machines are actually using a zinc-free 32 hydraulic oil.

Is the Hitachi EX60 the model with an adjustable offset in the boom? Just curious.

Well I researched it, an we don't use zinc free oil, the chevron oil we use is just the regular stuff, not the clarity line of oil. Chevron says that the zinc free oil is suited for use in systems containing yellow metal. They seem to work fine on it, maybe there's pumps getting ready to blow all over the nation though, guess it'll give me something to do That's all I could find on the situation, weather it helps or not I don't know.

What does the oil do in the larger equipment, what fails?

oregon96pd said:

What does the oil do in the larger equipment, what fails?

Click to expand...

It takes pumps and hydraulic motors out - with monotonous regularity ........ we researched the issue with other users before we took delivery of our 2 x EX3600's.

A lot of oil manufacturers tout their zinc-free hydraulic oils as "equivalent to" or "meeting" the same spec as Hitachi 46HN.

An aside about viscosity. The bigger machines call for a 46 irrespective of climate, I have no idea what the smaller machines require. If I was in somewhere fairly cool-ish or cold I'd be thinking 32, if I was somewhere warm I'd be thinking 46.

My question is, how many hours has he put on it since he added the 32w?

Everything I looked at pointed toward using ashless hydraulic oil on all Hitachi, like Nige said definitely on the bigger machines. The zinc in regular hyd fluid can leach the yellow metals in the hydraulic pumps basically