Bought a '96 JCB 214 and am trying to fix the couple leaks before winter. The metal hydraulic line hit the ground and pushed it up, breaking the fitting. The part is unfortunately 300 bucks. My question is, has anyone used a pipe bender and bent the line up above he cylinder to prevent this from happening again? Amazing they engineered it this way.
Welcome to the expensive world of JCB. There isn't anything cheap as far as parts from front to back. The fittings are mostly British inverted flares and not readily available at a lot of hose facilities, at least here. As long as the tube gets oil to the right place, doesn't leak, and doesn't hit anything during its range of motion, you can pretty much bend where you want. I've removed damaged tubes before and had a replacement made, then rewelded it back into the barrel.
Can you replace the solid line with a T fitting and short pieces of hose? Nice and flexible then if it needs to move. Ben