Speeco Blue Hydraulic fluid

[kevin j]

Several common ways to do this. Usually in industrial equipment it is done by unloading the pilot stage of the relief valve and sending the pump flow through the relief valve direct to tank at low pressure. It is like screwing out the rv adjustment all the way.

For a logsplitter, a high pressure ball valve teed into the line from pump to control valve and venting back to tank would unload the pump for cold startup. Closed = operation. Open = pump flow goes direct back to tank. Still have pump torque to move thick fluid, but it is a much lower pressure.
1. Must be high pressure steel valve, not a brass home store valve.
2. A simple two way valve can be opened and closed while engine is running, unload or run.
3. Three way valve would work, sending pump flow either to control valve or to tank., but I wold not do that. The valve costs more, and MUST have a special ball that opens one port totally before closing the other port. Otherwise, if the valve was shifted while engine is running, the pump would go again a blocked position of the ball valve (relief valve in the spool valve is downstream of this three way, and not in circuit, not protecting pump) and something will fail.

 

[farmer steve]

If I could find a 5 gallon bucket of plow or arctic hydraulic fluid reasonable I would. Thin fluid helps cycle times and yanking the cord on this pig below freezing usually rips the handle right off the pull cord even with the "plow fluid" if thats what it is. Anything thicker would shut me down from splitting below 32 degrees.

I did some work on a paint sprayer that had a cold start valve that made it start easier by essentially deadheading the line between the pump and the sprayer motor, won't work with the splitter. I couldn't believe it worked to help with cold starts based on the hydraulic schematics but it did.

Wish there was a similar, simple thing to do with the splitter that would help with cold starts besides a tank heater or an electric start motor.

Still don't have it up and running yet.

Tranny fluid should work in colder weather. My buddy swears by it.

 

[cumminstinkerer]

Several common ways to do this. Usually in industrial equipment it is done by unloading the pilot stage of the relief valve and sending the pump flow through the relief valve direct to tank at low pressure. It is like screwing out the rv adjustment all the way.

For a logsplitter, a high pressure ball valve teed into the line from pump to control valve and venting back to tank would unload the pump for cold startup. Closed = operation. Open = pump flow goes direct back to tank. Still have pump torque to move thick fluid, but it is a much lower pressure.
Must be high pressure steel valve, not a brass home store valve.

Kevin,
I PMed him about doing just that, we had that same setup on our pony motor on our hydraulic detach lowboy, itt worked pretty well, plus you could run it open for a while and it would start to warm the fluid up, plus it let the engine and pump warm up.

 

[CentaurG2]

If I could find a 5 gallon bucket of plow or arctic hydraulic fluid reasonable I would. Thin fluid helps cycle times and yanking the cord on this pig below freezing usually rips the handle right off the pull cord even with the "plow fluid" if thats what it is. Anything thicker would shut me down from splitting below 32 degrees.

I did some work on a paint sprayer that had a cold start valve that made it start easier by essentially deadheading the line between the pump and the sprayer motor, won't work with the splitter. I couldn't believe it worked to help with cold starts based on the hydraulic schematics but it did.

Wish there was a similar, simple thing to do with the splitter that would help with cold starts besides a tank heater or an electric start motor.

Still don't have it up and running yet.

Get yourself a kerosene torpedo heater. Set it up and point it at the hydraulic tank or engine. Give it a couple of minutes and you should be good to go. We have started many a frozen diesel with a torpedo heater. Our 4 ft splitter needs the heater to get going at temps below -0F.

 

[Jhenderson]

I know what you mean. My forwarder has a 30 gallon gear pump connected directly to the crank. Turns pretty hard at 10 degrees even using AW 32 hyd oil. Old john Deere skidders had a de stroke screw on the piston style hydraulic pump. Worked great.