Six months of cutting oil on the same pump, big difference in wear

Been running my hydraulic dredge pump on the Yazoo River for six months now, switched from standard gear oil to a synthetic blend after a buddy at the Baton Rouge shop suggested it. I pulled the impeller last week for inspection and the wear rings barely had any scoring, normally I'd see a rebuild by now. The viscosity held up way better in the summer heat, so I'm sticking with it for the next season. Anyone else run synthetics on older pumps, or does it mess with seal tolerances?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamesc7920d ago

Man, that's awesome to hear. Reminds me of when I tried synthetic in my old log splitter pump and the seals started sweating a little, but it cleared up after a week or so. Guess it depends on how crusty the old seals are, you know?

parker_webb19d ago

So you're telling me the seals actually tightened back up on that log splitter? That's the part that always makes me nervous with older equipment. I've seen guys swear by switching to synthetic and then chasing leaks for a month because the additive package cleans out all the varnish that was plugging up tiny gaps. Was that sweat just the excess getting pushed out, or did you have to torque down the fittings to get it to stop? Because if it cleared up on its own after a week, that tells me the seals were still flexible, not brittle like some of the 20-year-old ones I've pulled apart.