wrote:

On Mon, 14 Jul 2014 08:09:23 -0700, Carla Fong
wrote:

Hi all -

I looked for a newsgroup about hydraulics but didn't find one... so here
we are...

We are in the process of repairing a truck mounted hydraulic crane (an
old power company rig that digs holes, sets poles and generally does
lots of stuff).

Yesterday I replaced two of the approximately 3,218 hydraulic hoses on
the rig and paid about $100 for them. Since there will be more hoses to
replace as we get into the project (and we also have a backhoe with
aging hoses that will need some attention in the future) we are
considering getting the tooling to do our own hoses.

The crimping machines seem godawful expensive - and there seem to be two
or three manufacturers (Parker, Weatherhead, Gates, etc.) with
apparently incompatible fittings and crimping dies...

Is tooling up for what we want to do reasonable for the amount of hoses
we will be making or is it more cost effective to run down to the auto
parts and have them made for us as needed?

Anybody do/done this and have any words of wisdom?

Thanks in advance

Carla

Pick at random any three letters from the alphabet, put them in any
order, and you will have an acronym designating a federal agency we can
do without. Milton Friedman

Greetings Carla,
I have made up a lot of hydraulic hoses using the fittings that screw
into the hose. The fittings are more expensive than crimp fittings but
you don't need a special machine to use them. You can use a lathe or a
pipe threading machine to screw the fittings into the hoses if you
are making up a lot of hoses. The fittings are re-usable so if a hose
gets damaged you just unscrew the fitting from the old hose and put it
on the new hose. See this link:
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/h...e-fitting.html
It explains how to install them and shows what they look like.
Cheers,
Eric

I was going to suggest this.

Additionally, where did you get the hoses made? Many auto parts stores
make hydraulic hoses, the various Parker stores do, and plenty of
others. Also if you have any friends that work at a place that services
fleets of utility trucks or many industrial places you can probably
borrow time with their crimper. Just buy the fittings and hose, pre-cut
the hose to length and then visit the friend for a crimping party and
bring pizza or something.