I have a project tomorrow replacing the hydraulic lines that connect to the control valves and the boom cylinder the winch and the boom extend cylinders on a Simon RO TC145-63 truck mounted crane. The hydraulic lines that are there now have a lot of worn spots on them and are ridiculously long. Is there a "rule of thumb" on the hydraulic length? The lines to the winch are #20 and the lines to the boom cylinder and extend cylinder are #12. I am thinking they need to be about twice or maybe two and a half times as long as the distance between the fittings and what they connect to to allow for rotation. The boom stows over the hood and makes a full 360 degrees of rotation.
No rule of thumb that I know of. I don't think I would make the new ones any shorter, provided they aren't dragging on the ground. Its a real mess if they get tight and pull.
The valving in the bottom of the pedestal stops the lines from dragging on the ground or they would. The lines have a coil of about two and a half turns on each line at the bottom of the pedestal. About ten feet or more. From the valves to the connections above rotation there is probably close to twenty feet of line in each one. Way more than needed. The self loading log trucks I used to work on had very little slack in the hydraulic lines but they had swivels in the lines that looked very expensive.
I would check that they haven't removed the lock stops on the rotation. If they are removed, they can continuously rotate, really turning the lines up. Which is handier to use, but it can be hard on hoses. It should have stops in it, so it can only rotate one full turn, and then you have to go back the other way.
Yes it has a stop that pulls the rotation lever back to the neutral position once it reaches a certain point in the rotation.
I removed the lines for the winch and boom extend cylinder yesterday. The control valve is located in the pedestal so there is about 3 feet from the top of the control valve to the bottom of the rotation bearing. The two #12 lines for the winch go from the control valve to steel lines just below the rotation bearing were over ten feet long. There was over 40 feet of #12 line coiled up in the small space. I'm going to look into ball bearing swivels for the lines and go a lot shorter. https://ph.parker.com/us/en/swivels-hydraulic-up-to-5000-psi-ps-series/ps1210303-12-12