Flushing a hydraulic system.

[Jason Hubner]

I removed the lift housing cover on my Farmall 504 diesel this winter to try and find the source of a pesky hydraulic leak, and found that after all the hydraulic oil was drained out there was a nasty little layer of dirty sludge on all flat surfaces. Can i refill with diesel fuel and run for a bit to clean this out without harming any of the systems? Any info would be helpful. Thanks.

 

[souNdguy]

is there a drain you can direct it to and instead of circulating it, just 'wash' it tot he drain.. perhaps use a bucket with t-shirt strainer and keep re-using the diesel and keep pouring til lthe sludge is gone.

that's how i wash out ford sumps.. just keep flushing thru till clean, vs circulating actual dirt.

wet emulsified oil on the other hand.. i'll dump in some diesel, atf and alcohol and circulatoe then flush warm.. but those are 2 different issues..e tc..

soundguy

 

[ihman73]

I second the "washing it to the drain" idea. That stuff is not something you want to circulate if you can avoid it. But after it is all flushed out I would check the oil condition after a 100 or so hrs. runtime to see if any more is flushed into the oil from elsewhere in the system. The condition you are seeing is why it is good to change that oil every so often.

 

[Dave Warden]

What I read on an archive was to drain and spray down with kero with your weed killing sprayer with drain plug off. Strain kero and do again. I scrubbed alot lots of nooks and crannies to get tofront and back. Spray down with WD40. I also ran a magnet around. Looks great when done. Also where the pickup is I soaked arag a couple of times.