A typical hydraulic system is composed of many components such as pumps, valves and actuators or cylinders. To complete the system it requires reliable connections that allow the hydraulic oil to move around without loosing fluid or pressure. Some of these components can be bolted together and do have built in fluid paths, but others rely on high pressure flexible hoses to control the flow of hydraulic fluid and are connected via entry and exit access points called 'ports'.

The connection fittings can be used for several purposes:

1. Joining components that have different sized ports.
2. Provide a bridge for different hydraulic standards such as BSP, JIC, NPT, ORFS and Metric.
3. Allows the correction orientation of components wether a straight line, 90° bend, 45° bend or swivel fitting that is required.
4. With the addition of bulkhead hardware this allows the connection to pass the fluid through an obstructing wall.
5. A quick disconnect fitting may be added to a machine without modification of hoses or valves

For ease of replacement and to keep running costs to the minimum, a standardization system is used for the connections. The most common method, in general, is to provide in each component a female-threaded port, on each hose or tube a female-threaded captive nut, and use a separate adapter fitting with matching male threads to connect the two.

We also stock a wide range of hydraulic parts including hoses, seals and pipes that can be found here