Blew a hydraulic line on the Mississippi last Tuesday and had to rethink my whole setup

I was working a maintenance dredge job near Baton Rouge when a 3/4 inch return line let go. Sprayed oil everywhere for a good 10 seconds before I could kill the pump. Made a mess. But the real problem was I had to wait 4 hours for a replacement fitting because I only carry standard sizes. The whole time I'm sitting there watching the clock tick and the barge is dead in the water. That's when I decided to start keeping spare hoses and fittings for the oddball connections on my rig. Has anyone else had to learn this the hard way or do you guys already carry extras for everything?

2 comments

2 Comments

sandra14612d agoTop Commenter

Watched a buddy lose a whole day on the Missouri river once because his spare o-ring kit didn't have the oddball metric size his backup pump needed. He'd been bragging for years about being prepared. I felt bad for him but it made me rethink my own kit. Now I carry a separate pouch just for the weird sizes and specialty adapters that came with my gear. It's a pain to sort through but beats deadheading back to the shop.

river_wright12d ago

Happens more than people want to admit... @sandra146 is right, it's not just gear though. I've noticed the same thing with stuff like tool sets and emergency kits. Everyone loads up on the basics but skips the parts that actually fail. Like owning a fire extinguisher but never checking the gauge until it's too late. We all get stuck in that mindset of "I've got that covered" until the one weird bolt or adapter comes up and we're stuck.