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Just realised I was wrong about using motor oil in hydraulic systems
Old timer named Dave at the shop told me to stop putting 15W-40 in the hydraulics on my 2008 Cat backhoe. I thought he was being picky but after 6 months the seals started swelling and the bucket was moving slow. Switched to the right hydraulic fluid and it fixed it in a week. Anyone else have a guy give you advice you ignored at first?
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ray_mitchell1mo ago
Six months on motor oil? You're lucky that thing didn't grenade entirely." Come on, grenade is a strong word. I've seen guys run motor oil in hydraulics for years on old farm equipment and they get by fine. Yeah, seals will swell some and you lose a little speed, but the whole thing isn't gonna blow up unless you're running it way too hard. A backhoe is a tough machine, it's not that delicate. Those Cat loaders from the 80s were built to handle all sorts of abuse, and a little 15W-40 isn't going to send metal flying everywhere. I think people get too scared about spec sheets and forget that sometimes you can bend the rules a bit before anything serious happens. Dave was right to switch you over, sure, but let's not pretend you were one bad day away from a catastrophic failure. That machine just needed the right oil to work right again, not a bomb squad.
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