Spent 6 months fighting a sticky hydraulic valve before a guy from Detroit showed me the trick

I was swapping valves on a 20 year old Dover unit in an office building near St. Paul and could not get the hydraulic fluid to stop foaming. An old timer walking by told me to bleed the air out of the return line before even touching the valve itself. I did it on the next job and the whole system ran smooth in under 10 minutes. Has anyone else run into this issue with older hydraulic setups?

3 comments

3 Comments

jakewhite16d ago

Yeah idk I used to think bleeding the lines was overkill if the valve seemed fine, but after fighting a similar issue for like two weeks I finally tried it and everything just worked. Definitely changed my mind on that one.

beth27616d ago

Reminds me of that time @jakewhite I swore a clog was the issue but air was the real problem.

drew_jones3116d ago

Forty hours I wasted chasing a phantom clog in my compressor line... turns out it was a micro-leak letting air in. Felt like a total idiot when my buddy came over and bled the lines in five minutes flat. Really makes you appreciate the basics all over again.