How many hydraulic hoses on a garbage truck?

Hello everyone,

I'm hoping there's some mechanically inclined folks here, used to either working on or around refuse trucks, particularly front, rear and side loading.

I'm a hydraulic sales specialist for a heavy equipment company in Washington state and I've been tasked with approaching our state waste collections agencies with a maintenance service proposal. I'm looking at putting together hose kits for either rebuilds or preventative maintenance and am looking to get a rough idea of how many hoses one might deal with on a garbage truck.

As well, if anyone has any insight as to how/who maintains the trucks I'd be very appreciative. As far as I know, the agencies (i.e. republic services, waste management etc) repair their own trucks aside from perhaps cylinders (when it comes to things like chroming or line boring) and have parts deals with say parker or eaton for hoses/fittings or pumps. Is this a contract I can ask to out-bid? Are these contracts and relationships hard to budge? Are these agencies concerned more with price or integrity and longevity of the materials for maintenance sake?

Appreciate any info!

Thank you,
JLee

 

99% of the time the failed hose will be removed from the equipment and taken to a hose shop to get a copy made. No such thing as a hose kit persey for equipment really.

 

If not, made in-house.

 

Most refuse trucks ( garbage is such an ugly word) have metal tubing, and a rubber hose just connects where the tubing would bend. I heard from one auto parts store, they couldn't make hydraulic hoses anymore and a new factory replacement is the only way. Again, liability on a repaired hose.

 

I can tell you having knowledge of Pak-Mor in San Antonio that most of the hoses are custom fabbed at the body assembly or installation shop using supplied parts from a vendor that manufactures them. Every setup is a little different even if they are same spec. 1inch or 1 degree in angle can make a difference either way.

 

I should elaborate... I run such a hose shop, where we have the materials to build/reverse engineer or provide any length and size of hose. It's an application generally applied to our heavy equipment, however I'm trying to do some out-of-the-box thinking.

It's inspired by something another dealership had done in AZ. Rather than have a hose blow-off and get it repaired, we do a 12-18 month cycle of hoses that prevents the event from happening in the first place. This might seem more costly, but in light of down time, slow cycles from degrading equipment and fines associated with hydraulic leaks in residential areas the AZ agencies ended up saving a significant amount of money.

Granted AZ is much hotter than WA, and their cycles are more rigorous (despite the Seattle area developing and crowding quite quickly) I wanted to see if there's still opportunity for this. I'll likely be in touch with some mechanics that deal with collection machines, but wanted to get some more background info before approaching them.

Thank you everyone for your replies! Looking forward to hearing more.

 

In this part of the country I don’t think it would work to get someone to change something out just because it has a born on date on it so to speak. Even in the oilfield they will run it till it breaks and then replace on site and move on. The spares laying around is a great idea as long as they can be moved and used without sitting too long and most guys don’t want to buy a bunch of parts they have to try to store somewhere themselves. If you are sitting on a bunch of custom made stuff for a customer that doesn’t destroy their stuff and have to replace very often how much is that gonna cost you.

A mobile on-site custom build setup may be a great idea for lots of guys that may have to wait for Holt or Deere to send a field tech out or send a part time employee or their 12 year old grandson into the big city to get one made at your shop. Like my Grandfather used to do. Lol

 

What about supplying the individual shops with hose supplies to build their own on-site?

 

This is an approach as well

The main goal is to prevent blow offs/failures and save money on environmental fines.

 

We need more people who think like you - proactively - in maintenance departments throughout this industry.