Power Team Hydraulics FAQ: What I Learned Buying SPX Power Team Hydraulic Pumps

I'm the guy at our shop who orders and maintains the hydraulic stuff: pumps, cylinders, fittings, hoses, and every odd part that keeps our presses running. I've been doing it for about 11 years, and in that time I've personally made 11 significant buying mistakes—I say significant because the small ones stopped counting. They cost maybe $15,000 total in wasted budget, and I documented every one of them. Now I keep the checklist I wish had been handed to me in 2014.

This FAQ is that checklist in article form. It covers the questions I hear most: what Power Team hydraulics actually is, whether a pneumatic hydraulic pump or an electric unit makes more sense, what a 3/4 hp sump pump can and can't do, and exactly where the check valve should be on a sump pump. I updated it in January 2025 after the last mistake we made, so it's current enough, though your setup might be different.

What is Power Team hydraulics, exactly?

Power Team hydraulics is a line of hydraulic equipment with roots that go back decades under the Power Team name. You see the same brand on jacks, cylinders, presses, torque wrenches, pullers, and pumps. When someone searches SPX Power Team hydraulic pump, they're usually looking at the pump portion of that lineup, sold through authorized distributors and carrying the SPX Power Team documentation and support trail.

Why should you care about the brand? Because a hydraulic pump fails eventually, and you need parts and a schematic that you can actually get. I learned that with a secondhand pump in 2017: the no-name unit worked until it didn't, and the help was a guy who basically said, sorry, I just sell them. The Power Team unit we replaced it with came with actual paperwork and consumables that matched. That might sound boring, but boring is what maintenance runs on.

Should I get a pneumatic hydraulic pump or an electric one?

A pneumatic hydraulic pump is driven by compressed air instead of an electric motor. It's the right choice in our shop because we already have plant air, we move the pump around, and a lot of our jobs stall under load for long periods, which is easier on an air motor than an electric one that runs hot. If you need maximum speed at low pressure and have three-phase power available, an electric pump might beat it for you. I can only speak to our situation: air, portable work, and no patience for 480-volt extension cords.

The mistake I made with ours was basic: I didn't buy air prep. I ran the pump off the plant line and ignored the water that had pooled in the drop leg. That cost about $890 in repairs and a one-week delay in September 2022. The pump wasn't to blame; the wet air was. So if you're pricing a pneumatic hydraulic pump, add a filter-regulator-lubricator to the cart before you add any fancy hose. Clean, dry air isn't optional.

Can a 3/4 hp sump pump replace a hydraulic pump?

No, and it's not because the brands are different. They are different machines. A 3/4 hp sump pump is a centrifugal water pump: high flow, low pressure. Its performance is expressed in feet of head, not PSI. Lifting water 25 feet, which is a serious lift for that class of pump, is only around 10 or 11 PSI. A hydraulic pump is a positive-displacement pump that has to push against 10,000-PSI loads without leaking backwards. You can't fix that difference with a bigger motor or a heavier extension cord.

I tried it in 2015 so you don't have to. It hummed, the breaker tripped, and the cylinder didn't move an inch. The experiment wasted the better part of an afternoon, and I'm still embarrassed that I wrote needs more horsepower in my notes instead of needs a different type of pump. If your job is to move water out of a pit, a 3/4 hp model is a fine tool. If your job is to move a hydraulic cylinder under load, it can't do it, no matter which brand names you type into the search bar.

Where should the check valve be on a sump pump?

Short answer: on the discharge pipe, above the pump, before the pipe runs horizontal or leaves the pit. If you're picturing a typical 3/4 hp sump pump in a basement crock, the check valve usually sits a foot or two above the pump outlet, up in the vertical run, with the arrow pointing away from the pump. Putting it above the pit cover makes future service easier, but every installation I've crawled under has its own logic.

Why does the location matter? Without a check valve, the water column in the discharge pipe falls back into the pit every time the pump stops. The impeller spins backwards and the float switch sees water again, which leads to short cycling and burned-out motors. With a check valve, the water stays up in the pipe and the pump gets a clean start. If you can't reach the valve without pulling the pump, install a union above it so the valve can be swapped without dismantling the whole discharge assembly.

What about the check valve in a hydraulic pump setup?

Once you understand the sump pump answer, the hydraulic answer is almost the opposite. In hydraulic systems, the load-holding check valve belongs close to the load, on or right at the cylinder port, not back at the pump. Here's what happened to us in 2023: our 8-ton press crept down overnight. We replaced the SPX Power Team hydraulic pump and it still crept. The problem was a check valve we had mounted on the power unit, maybe twelve feet of hose away from the cylinder. That long hose holds oil under pressure, and every little leak or connection settles until the load moves.

We moved a pilot-operated check valve to the cylinder port and the press held overnight. The difference is the amount of oil between the valve and the load: short and rigid versus long and flexible. This is one of those I can only speak to our machine fixes, so if your cylinder is oversized or your hose is unusually long, get a qualified person to do the math. But don't assume a check valve at the pump is doing the same job as one at the cylinder.

Which specs actually matter on a Power Team hydraulic pump?

The temptation is to buy the pump with the biggest number on the label. I did that once, and the pump spent half its life cycling on the relief valve because our cylinders didn't need half the pressure it could make. What mattered more was flow at working pressure. A pump that makes 10,000 PSI but moves a thimble of oil per stroke will make you old waiting for a cylinder to travel. A two-stage pump, which moves oil fast at low pressure and then shifts to high-pressure low-flow, is usually the practical answer for a shop press.

For our press, moving from single-stage to two-stage cut a full cycle from nearly four minutes to under a minute. Check the flow chart on the manufacturer's site, not just the max pressure. I pulled ours in January 2025 and the ratings matched the nameplate, but I'd still verify before ordering a pump sight unseen.

Does a small shop get treated seriously when buying Power Team equipment?

This one is personal. When we started, our hydraulic budget for the year was smaller than what some plants spend on hoses in a month. I assumed we'd be ignored. The vendor that took our first order, a little over $300 for a pump repair kit, answered the phone the same way when we later ordered a full pump unit. I still use that vendor. Being small doesn't mean being unimportant; it means the order deserves the same care, not less.

If a supplier treats your first small order like a nuisance, that's useful information before you give them a big one. When you're a smaller shop, service after the sale matters more, not less, because you don't have an engineering department to fix things for you.