What's new
What's new

OT?-Anyone Used These Ebay Hydraulic Hose Crimpers

alskdjfhg

Diamond
Joined
Feb 20, 2013
Location
Houston TX
I'd like to start buying bulk hydraulic hose and fittings to start making my own hoses. Got a few projects coming up where Id save alot making vs buying.

I'd like a normal hydraulic hose crimpers, but I saw this Separable Hydraulic Hose Crimper 7 Dies Portable Crimper Snap Automotive GREAT | eBay and was wondering if anyone had used one before for hydraulic hoses on heavy equipment.

They say it goes up to -12, which would cover the majority of my needs
 
Not sure if they are saying the dies are Aluminum or just the body. I would doubt the heat treat on the dies. They may be too soft and wear/deform quickly or too hard and shatter under load. Cheap tools are often poorly heat treated or the wrong type of steel.
If the dies can be replaced with quality make products it is probably okay.
 
First I will say I have no knowledge of the the Ebay crimper. It might make sense if you need to get down machinery back on line in a hurry. The vast array of fittings required would make me question the pay back. Different type hose, different size hose, pipe thread, o ring seal, JIC, right angle, swivel and on and on all require different fittings.

I have found an online source for hydraulic hoses that is less than half the price of locally sourced hoses. While it takes about a week to get the product and you don't have to stock every conceivable fitting and hose. They charge a reasonable price for the fittings and hose and a ten dollar labor charge per hose. The shipping is probably similar to what it would cost me to drive to a local supplier.

I bought quite a few adapters from them in the past and now have an old backhoe that the hoses have lost much of their outer rubber and have been buying a few hoses at a time as a preemptive strike to imminent failures.

Their web site is DiscountHydraulicHose.com. Standard disclaimer, no affiliation, just a satisfied customer.
 
Hydraulic hose crimpers are usually manufacturer component specific.....which is one of the reasons the mobile fixers wont refit a long hose to repair incidental damage,unless its one of theirs......and you do a lot of business with them...Ive long used the screw together components,generally Frederick Duffield here,but they also need dedicated hose......you d think when a hose says SAE 100/R3 or something it was standardized,but it aint.......one other issue is pressure.....many modern machines work on 6000 psi,and need special HP hose and componenets......as mentioned,Ive found an online supplier at 1/3 of the mobile price......but the question is can you afford a machine sitting idle for the two days or so it takes the hose to come.,versus the mobile fixer in a few hours.....and many of the mobile fixers will also fit the hose,a big plus when machine operators are millenials ,and cant hold a spanner the right way.
 
That's for crimping automotive AC hoses. It has serrated dies. Hydraulic hoses are crimped with smooth dies.

I would avise to buy an older used one with a reputable name. I talked to my local wholesale hydraulics place and they would loan me a crimper if I bought a few grand in fittings or gave me the run down on what to buy if I went new or used.

It turned out what I needed was a crimp-to-diameter machine, not a cheap bottom out the die machine. I use my crimper for all kinds of stuff, not just hoses. And I want to crimp any brand of fitting including repair crimps and custom stuff I make or modify.

I ended up buying an old Aeroquip crimper for $300. It has a linear encoder for position and is repeatable to .001". It looked like shit when I bought it, but cleaned up nice and works perfect.

If you buy a crimper to crimp a specific brand of fitting you are kinda fucked for using any other fittings.

That thing in the ebay listing is junk. There's no way it could do a real hydraulic crimp. It's missing about 200 pounds of steel.

This is just like the one I have, but in really rough shape, missing all of the tooling and 20 times what it's worth. Look for one of these- AEROQUIP FT 1330 CRIMPING MACHINE crimper | eBay
 
I know a guy selling an old parker crimp machine, he's a parker hose and fitting distributor. Is asking $1000 for the crimper and just trying to figure out of more about this stuff before spending a few grand in machines and tooling.

I have several pieces of equipment that are greatly in need of hoses, and to have the hoses made would be an insane amount of money. When using wholesale prices, not as bad.
 
Look at how many crimps at $5 or even $10 each it will take to pay for $1000 worth of crimper. You still need to buy the hoses and the fittings, probably need to spend extra money on fittings so you have what you need on hand, when a hose breaks.
With the online prices quoted earlier of materials + $10 labor per hose, you will need to repair 100 hoses to break even on the machine. Plus have some money tied up in fittings and hose stock.

How many fittings to stock? Does all your equip use the same ends? o-ring, internal bevel, external bevel(-AN), pipe thread, with or without swivel... these are what I have here on 4 pcs equip (2 forklifts, backhoe, crane) and some hydraulic shop tools like ironworker and hyd bender/shear, press etc.
If you are going to buy fittings on an as needed basis then just buy the completed hose, either way you wait for the delivery.

A deal like garwood got I would be all over it, I would use it for other uses as well, but not much more $, especially just to do hoses.
 
There are almost always wholesale hydraulic and fitting suppliers you need a business account to buy from. Every decent size city has these places. I'm not talking about Parker, but guys who sell everything and can get anything.

Fittings are a buck to 2 bucks each and hose is a couple hundred a spool or cheap by the foot.

The places that crimp fittings around me are generally $40+++ per hose for real basic stuff.

Then there's the advantage or having the crimper right next to the machine you are working on.

I keep very little stock on hand for fittings. I just buy what I need to do whatever job I'm working on.

I have paid a lot more for machines I use a lot less.
 
As others have said, there are so many ways to buy made to order hoses in any length that it really wouldn't pay to buy the equipment unless you are doing a lot of hoses. What Ive seen even pro shops do when dealing with hoses that have a rigid bent steel line at one end is cut the metal tubing just beyond the crimp, double flare it and then use a hose with appropriate fittings.
 
My dad has a hose crimper but he never uses it. The pre-made hoses are available cheaper than he can buy the bulk hose. Sometimes we buy pre made hoses and cut them to a custom length and crimp on one new end. Works good for general low pressure applications.

When you get into newer equipment with higher working pressure, it gets more difficult. In this area we have to go to a heavy equipment dealer to get hoses made for machines running 5000 PSI.
 
As has been mentioned, Gates and others will often (through a distributor) give you the tool if you buy a ftting stock. You aren't going to do that. But if you buy a used Gates crimper, Gates has a hydraulic rep in your area that will survey your equipment and tell you what fittings and hose you need to buy. He can also hook you up with a supplier. I'm sure Parker and others can do the same, my experience is with Gates. I would be looking for a cheap Gates crimper, hopefully with a fitting stock. Watch the fleet auctions. Houston should be awash (gosh, that was insensitive!) with them.
 
We have an Eaton/Weatherhead crimper that was given to us when we bought a stock assortment some years ago.We also were able to buy the fittings & hose at distributor prices.

I'm sure if you keep looking you can find a used unit cheap,just be sure to buy a popular brand,Parker,Aeroquip,Wheatherhead,because as previously mentioned you will be locked into that brand hose and fittings.Not to say that you can't crimp other brands because all mfg's spec the finished crimp diameter.As long as you use the same fitting brand as the hose.

If I had a lot of equipment to maintain I would try to standardise where I could.The most popular on older stuff is probably JIC and there are lots of adaptors available to convert to JIC.

When you get into imported there's quite a lot of different specs.We have a mix of both and whenever I can I adapt to JIC fittings.
Forget that automotive crimper I'd bet its for ac hoses and if you were to need something for ac hoses there are some screw clamp crimpers really cheap that will do a good job.
 
Gates and probably others have changeover dies to use their fittings on other machines. It is cheaper to buy a crimper with a fitting stock to suit
You won't have any problem buying fittings and hose wholesale in Houston. It's a very competitive market.
 
There's some bad info going on here.

Again, there are TWO main types of crimpers-

1) The low end one-shot bottom out and done jobs that are specific to one brand of fitting.

2) the crimp-to-diameter style that will crimp anything.

This is like the difference between an arbor press and an Amada press brake.

Every fitting manufacturer publishes the crimp diameter for their fittings.
 
Anyone have any comment on this Synflex I’ve got:
46a1d4fd4dde19c771c64b4580c49c51.jpg

A hand operated hydraulic hose crimper. Never used it.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
We've had a pre-electronics Imperial Eastman Kwikrimp crimper for about 35 years. It has a hollow micrometer type dial that you set for the particular fitting, and when the plunger in the center comes flush with the top, you're at the proper diameter.

Don't know if they still do it or not, but, used to be all the major hose and fitting mfgrs published a list of the settings for the Kwikrimp corresponding to each of their fitting and hose combinations in addition to crimp diameters. It will crimp anything from small stuff up thru -32 (2") 4 wire hose, so I guess they were pretty popular for people who make a lot of hoses across a large range of sizes.

Between mobile cranes, boom trucks. backhoes, trenchers, dump trucks, and a couple semi trailers with hydraulics, we had 50-60 pieces of equipment with hoses. Tried to stock most any fitting that we might run into on any of the stuff, primarily because the local suppliers always seemed to have a sack full of adapters to sell you in order to get from whatever hose end they had to what you actually needed, all at heart attack prices.

The price of bulk hose and fittings is heavily dependent on volume. By buying an initial stock of $10K list, we were able to get 75-80% off of list, and the same discount for subsequent orders with a minimum purchase of $2K list. And, this was buying thru a distributor and not factory direct. Someone whose primary business is hose and fittings would do even better assuming much higher volumes. So, its not hard to see how an online seller can make good money on hose assemblies at half of list price. Given the fact that all the "Parker Stores" that seem to be popping up everywhere are selling everything at full list price, it wouldn't be surprising if they're operating on a 90% gross margin given the fact that they're all owned by large Parker distributors who are buying factory direct.
 
Name shops pay massive franchise fees,like 25% of gross turnover.....anyway ,whatever happened to the Caterpillar XT series fittings ,there was no crimping necessary,just a simple press to push on the sleeves.or off if reusing fittings.
 
If it’s a new premade Parker hose, I’ll buy it. Otherwise I always pass. The neighbor left 15gal. of hydraulic fluid in my field because of a POS import hose. It blew the fitting right off the end of the hose.

It took a while but I bought a Parker Karrykrimp on eBay for $400 shipped a while back and averaged $60/series 43 dies up to (-16) 1”.

My little crimper has paid for itself 3x over. There’s nothing better than having the crimper next to you while making hoses for your equipment. I stock about $300 in fittings and $500 in hose (3/8”-3/4”). You’ll find brand new 3/4” Parker hose for $6/ft. shipped all day. I guarantee if you go to your local hydraulic shop for a 10’ (3/4”) Parker hose with standard male/female JIC fittings it will cost you $130-$150. Make it yourself for $50 :D

PARKER HYDRAULIC HOSE 471TC-12 3/4" 40' TWO WIRE HOSE 100R16 | eBay
 








 
Back
Top