Locating the leak

Fluorescent hydraulic oil additives might not seem an obvious maintenance buy, but if you ever have to poke around amongst slightly greasy hoses and pipe work in order to find out exactly what is weeping fluid, you might be relieved to find a simple solution.

US-based company Spectroline has developed several different UV dies which are completely miscible with the normal oil in almost any closed-loop hydraulic system: the joy of them is that they will show up even a tiny leak in the beam of a UV torch, said Spectraline’s UK distributor, Kyle Bray of Advanced Engineering.

Further, it’s fairly easy to shine the special, 365nm UV light up the line to see exactly where it’s coming from without having to play Sherlock Holmes. The reason for the different colours, he added, is simply that if you have a number of hydraulic systems running side by side “and only clue is a damp patch or a puddle on the floor” then you can tell which of them is experiencing problems he explained.

It only takes a tiny amount of the UV additive – the ratio is 1:1,000 – to show up the fluorescence and it will last as long as the oil does without changing any of its properties, so a small ‘starter’ pack which includes the torch will probably work out to be a cost effective investment.

Mr Bray added that although “not that many people are aware of these additives yet”, the system has already proven its worth on land. He told MJ: “One company running a large vehicle fleet was losing hundreds of litres of fuel every few weeks but it wasn’t easy for them to see where it was disappearing – that ability to check helped them investigate and stop the loss.”

By Stevie Knight