Hydraulic Oil Used By Caterpillar Sparks Debate

Hydraulic Oil Used By Caterpillar Sparks Debate ENGINES Engines If you ve rented any hydraulic-powered equipment in the past couple years - such as an anhydrous rig - you might want to find out if anyone who rented the rig before you owned a Caterpillar Challenger If so it might be a good idea to drain the hydraulic oil out of your tractor as soon as possible and replace it with fresh oil That advice comes from the head of a major tillage equipment company who recently called FARM SHOW to voice concerns about degradation of oil caused by hooking up to implements that have been pulled by a Challenger The manufacturer asked not to be identified The problem is that Caterpillar uses a straight 10W oil in its Challenger 65 75 85 and 95 models The company has persisted in the practice despite a worldwide SAE standard which calls for use of 15W-30 oil which sells for $4 per gallon versus $2 50 per gallon for 10W oil in tractors with integrated transmissions gears and hydraulic systems The standard was established in the early 1950 s and is observed by nearly every other farm equipment manufacturer Lord only knows how much damage this has caused and continues to cause in farmers tractors such as accelerated gear wear and premature clutch failure the manufacturer told FARM SHOW Every time a Challenger tractor is hooked up to an implement 3 1/2 gal or more of 10W oil from the tractor is exchanged into the implement s hydraulic system Some of this degraded oil is then transferred into the hydraulic system of the next tractor that hooks up to the implement That s one reason we don t rent any equipment anymore in addition to concerns about transferring damaging foreign material into our hydraulic systems says Dixon Ill farmer Jerry Brechon He s a stickler when it comes to the proper care of his machinery and won t risk introducing 10W oil into his late model Deere and Ford 4-WD s He feels the oil is too light to provide adequate lubrication of gear teeth and transmissions Margins are thin enough in farming says Brechon You certainly don t need costly downtime and repairs on machinery if there s a way to avoid them Caterpillar s service manager for E Series Challengers Manuel Garcia says the problem is being blown out of proportion Hesays any purchaser of a Challenger can re-quest a heavier-weight oil Our Challengers are shipped with straight 10W hydraulic oil unless otherwise specified by the customer says Garcia Other specifications would be based on the implements the tractor will be used with and the ambient temperatures it ll be operated at So what weight oil do Cat dealers recommend to customers? We asked Ziegler a large Caterpillar dealer in Bloomington Minn what it recommends for the Challenger 75E In most cases they stick with Cat s straight 10W HYDO or any other commercial straight 10W hydraulic oil with the same rating we were told John Inman is a consultant and retired University of California ag engineer Cross-contamination of hydraulic fluid is nothing new in the industry It dates back to the 1950 s he notes The issues are: Is there enough accumulation to cause a problem? What damage - if any - might it cause? And when might it occur? That all depends on individual usage and whether recommended service intervals are observed he says Two big Deere dealers we spoke with one in Illinois and one in California were divided on opinions of what problems - if any - hydraulic oil degradation might cause Like nearly all other equipment manufacturers Deere recommends using only 15W-30 in its tractors However the tillage equipment manufacturer who called FARM SHOW insists that mixing oil of different viscosities flagrantly flaunts basic principles of lubrication and it has the potential to cause big problems Here s what he recommends: • If you ve rented a piece of equipment that s been pulled by a Challenger in the last 12 months drain your tractor s hydraulic transmission and drivetrain systems and re-fill with the manufacturer s recommended 15W-30 hydraulic/transmission fluid • Double check any used machiner

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