Putting Thread ID Knowledge to Work

Joe Kelly

Fluid Connector Specialist

Parker Hannifin

A few weeks ago I unexpectedly had the opportunity to test my thread knowledge. I had set up a call with an account that Randy Marceau had asked me to see. My contact at the account explained to me when I arrived that one of his maintenance employees was working on a leak that was up in the ceiling. While he was up there making the repair, the battery had died on their Scissor lift.  He was able to safely return to the ground, but he had no way of moving the lift out of the walkway because of the dead battery. What he decided to do next is where the trouble started.

            Since he couldn’t drive the lift under its own power he decided to push it with a fork truck, and it worked. He managed to get the lift out of the walkway and push it all the way back to its storage room. The problem is that as he was pushing the lift along, one of the forks slipped underneath the lift where some hoses were routed. As the fork passed under the platform it crashed directly into a 90 degree swivel sheering off the port end and rendering the machine unusable.

The customer pulled the fitting off and it turned out to be a Parker Swivel from the Quick Coupling Division like the one pictured below. These swivels allow the hose to swivel in applications where the hose moves back and forth on a single plane in order to minimize stress on the hose.

            I had brought along my thread ID kit. The housing end of the fitting was clearly JIC 37⁰ flare. The other end turned out to be 3/8 NPT. The only thing that was left to find out was the size. I had some JIC hose fittings in the car so I went out to grab them, and I discovered that the Swivel was -6.

Parker and the Hope Group have specialists who can do this type of identification for you, but they also offer training which could help you or your employees learn how to identify fittings and threads on their own.

In the training class you will learn the 4 critical steps to identifying threads:

1 – Determine if the thread is tapered or parallel

2 – Determine the pitch

3 – Determine the size

4 – Designate the thread

            Finally the training teaches you to pull all of that information together in step 4, in order to identify almost any thread you will come across. If you are interested in this training, you may register online for the seminar taking place from 8:30AM to 12:30PM on June 15, 2016 at The Hope Group's Parker Store in Fitchburg, Mass.  It will be led by experts from Parker in a hands-on training that covers inch and metric threads. Space is limited so be sure to register early!