I knocked the lift pump and cart over last night. The damn thing fell right on the hydraulic hose fitting and snapped it off. Only lost a small amount of fluid and the car was raised but was settled on the safety lock prior to this.
The hose supplied with the lift is some weird little O-ring sealed connection. I've never used this type before on any equipment. Searched the web and most people said it was some Chinese metric special crap that can only be ordered from the manufacturer. My mind was like F- U- U- U- U- U- K !!!!
The lift also takes a really common ISO30 hydraulic oil that is almost unabtanium around here. Must all come from Russia.
Anyway, I take what's left of this hose contraption off. There's a fitting that screws into the pump that the dinky line attaches to and a matching one at the splitter block by the lift cylinders. The threads there look familiar. Kinda like the hot high school chic thats now ringing up your chips at 7-11 or Allsup's after 15 years of prostitution, 5 years in prison, and 20 years smokin' meth.
Yup, that's it.... its 3/8th pipe thread. I run to NorthernTool after work and grab 10ft of " pre made" 3/8th hydraulic hose, a 45° swivel fitting, and can't find fluid anywhere.
I swing home determined not to be defeated. Go straight the the garage and the hose threads in perfectly. Add some Teflon tape and button that all up. The button gets pushed and the lift raises up off the lift lock. Dusty, safely, gets lowered back down on all 4. The lift is back working even better than ever.
After going through what I went through I'd highly suggest replacing the hydraulic hose from the pump to the lift. The hose from NorthernTool and the fitting were less than 50 bucks. This hose is made so much better. The old hose had a little section of tube at a female swivel connection that screwed on the fitting that adapted it to 3/8th NPT. That tube broke. It easily could've happened just tripping over the hose or even maxing out the length while positioning the lift pump out of the way. If the lift was raising, and the safety latch had failed, the car would've dropped. There is a safety restriction built in so it would've dropped at the normal lowering rate...but still would've been scary or deadly if someone or something couldn't get out of the way fast enough.
I didn't even have to top off the fluid. Everything is fine. Better than ever. The lift itself is very well made. The built in safety features work. The thing is even completely sevicable.
I need to order some rubber lift pads in various sizes. You'd be surprised how expensive they are. They used to be made out of old tire sidewalls and riveted together. Those things were almost free. Not any more.