Well it was only a matter of time until we had a major failure of the onboard hydraulic system on board the boat, and this weekend proved to be that point in time.
This is what remains of one of the main hoses to the propulsion motor, the fitting has been blown off the end of the hose! This occurred when I moved into reverse to stop the boat for oncoming traffic, and suddenly I lost all drive. The end result is a bilge filled with hydraulic oil, and zero power for manoeuvring.
The hose outer cover has been cut through by the fitting, like it had been sliced through with a knife, what remains of the inner liner & outer sheath is still in the fitting:
Here’s the end of the offending fitting, with the remains of the hose. I suspect this termination wasn’t done correctly in the first place – either the swage was done too tight, cutting into the hose, or the fitting was never pushed all the way onto the hose before swaging, resulting in reduced strength.
Now comes the effort of cleaning out the roughly 40L of oil now in the bilges, refilling the oil tank & getting new hoses made up.
