Dangers of Mixing Hydrolic Fluid

[hotchkiss]

If you loose a gallon or so of hydrolic fluid and need to add some in a hurry, but don't have the same type of fluid as is in the tractor, does mixing the two cause the fluid to break down? Do you need to go out and change all of the fluid?

 

[Soundguy]

I wouldn't lose alot of sleep about mixing 2 different brands of plain hyd oil.. or even slightly different weights for that matter. IE.. in a system with 10g of aw32, and i add a gallon of aw46.. etc.

Now.. if I had synthetic UTF.. I wouldn't want to mix.. but... if it meant running my machine out of oil.. or topping off with different oil.. well.. usually any oil is better than no oil.

Also.. if you use hyd remotes, and you borrow an implement.. unless you bleed the old implement.. you are cross contaminating the fluid anyway.. etc.

soundguy

 

[RickB]

I agree with Chris. But without knowing which differing oil you are adding what original oil, it's tough to give a good answer. Generally speaking, any tractor owner should have some quantity of oils compatible with the tractor on hand, but that doesn't always happen.

 

[DieselPower]

Like RickB said, not knowing what oil's you mixed it's tough to give a good answer. In general though as long as you just added another suitable oil to it, ie. you mixed UDT and a little of a no name UTF to it I wouldn't loose any sleep over it. Your not going to create a toxic mix that is going to eat your tractor. Usually the worst thing that will happen is you slightly decrease the overall properties of the fluid. Hopefully it was at least the same viscosity.

 

[hotchkiss]

I have a little more information to give you. I am not the one who mixed the fluids, but got the question. Because I wasn't sure about the answer, I thought I would throw it out to you guys.

The person had AMBRA Multi G 134 fluid in his New Holland utility tractor (I don't know which model he has) and as near as I can tell he lost 1 to 2 gallons of fluid due to a leak in one of the hoses. I think he put a no name UTF fluid in it to get the level back up and get the tractor home.

I say I think because, there is a slight chance that he put a no name Hydraulic Fluid in it.

I have told him that if he put UTF in it, he should need to change the fluid until his next service is required. HOWEVER, IF HE PUT IN SOME TYPE OF PURE HYDRAULIC FLUID THAT WASN'T UTF, IT MIGHT NOT BE SUFFICIENT WEIGHT TO PROTECT THE GEARS. THEREFORE, I WOULD CHANGE THE FLUID JUST TO BE SAFE.

I should know what he put in for certain in a day or two when I get to talk to him again and he gets a chance to look at the container of fluid.

What do you all think????

 

[RickB]

As a system top-off, in a small quantity relative to the whole capacity, straight hydraulic oil probably isn't bad. There will be few (if any)additives to conflict with the additive package carried by the 134, and the viscosity probably isn't different enough to make much difference.

 

[DieselPower]

It really wouldn't be a conflict of additive packages with hydraulic oil and UTF fluid but rather a lack of them in the hydraulic oil. The hydraulic oil is not going to have extreme pressure additives that protect the gears or friction modifiers for wet cluthch/brake and power transmission applications. In any quantity the hydraulic oil would weaken the overall protection in these areas.

 

[Soundguy]

That's why i don't like using hyd oil in hyd compartments of my tractors that are not common sump.. because I have toher tractors that are common sump.. thus I like to use UTF in all.. to prevent getting 'jack oil' in my diffy case.

soundguy

 

[DieselPower]

Thats always a good idea. Hard to fill with the wrong fluid if you use the same thing in all your equipment. Shoot, I have been using UTF in my car and trucks power steering systems for years.

 

[Richard]

Just be sure you don't do what we (accidently) did...

Rented a Bobcat. At the end of the day, we went to refuel it. The fuel cap was "so high" and we were using 5-gal buckets. We happened to have a slight hill 10 feet away so we moved the machine over there so we could pour the fuel in much easier.

walked up a couple foot hill and took the filler cap off and put in...(I don't remember...been 10 years) what seemed to be 5 gallons?

Then it hit the brim with fuel... How was it full already since it had a near empty tank?

Welllllllllllllllllllllllllll, it seems we didn't realize that the fuel cap was "so high" while standing on flat ground. Once we climbed up the several foot embankment, we neglected to compensate for that and removed the hydraulic filler cap which was "so high PLUS 12 inches"

We just finished dumping 5 gallons of diesel into the hydraulic system

Hoping it might have still been "near the top" we then siphoned off 5 gallons in an attempt to remove that which we put in but I don't really think we were as successful as we wanted to think we were.