Hydraulic line burst on 3rd shift, my warning to you guys

Last month I was running a Grove RT at a jobsite in Tulsa, doing a routine pick of precast panels, no big deal. About 3 hours into the shift, I heard this pop that sounded like a firecracker and then fluid started spraying everywhere from a fitting near the boom pivot. I shut down fast, but the line had already dumped maybe 15 gallons of hydraulic oil onto the pad before I could even kill the engine. My spotter said it looked like a snake just exploded, and honestly the cleanup crew was not happy with me for the rest of the day. The kicker is, I did a visual check that morning and the hose looked fine, no cracks or bulges. Turns out the inner liner was worn out from age, and the pressure spike just blew it apart. I'm wondering if anyone else has had a line fail without any warning signs, and what do you do to track hose hours on older cranes that might be past their prime?

1 comments

1 Comment

taylor95718d ago

Marking the hose with a tag and a date is the only thing that saved me from this exact mess.