Well, it’s a bit of a good news, bad news situation. Though the bad news isn’t any surprise. We hooked up to a tractor mounted hydraulic pump and the good news is that for the most part, everything works. All the control valves and cylinders extend and retract and the winch (run by a hydraulic motor) winds in and out.
The expected bad news? Most of the hydraulic hoses need replacing, including a couple that completely failed.
A trip to our local Napa and I was able to get replacements made for all the hoses. Unfortunately the one for the boom extension cylinder is buried up inside the boom. So here I am cutting a slot to get at the fitting so it can be replaced.
In the end, the hoses all went in fine and we should be in good shape.
Now that we know that everything works we can really start planning things out. Next steps include priming and painting the hoist (if Mike can pick a color) as well as getting a PTO and hydraulic pump installed on the truck. The truck (a Chevy C4500) has an option to mount a PTO (Power Take Off) directly to the transmission. This allows running another accessory directly off the drive train of the truck in a very efficient manner. We’ll be using the PTO mounted hydraulic pump to drive the hoist hydraulics.
See you in the next installment!