john_bud said:
I am often conflicted reading your posts. You say you are down to eating generic PB on stale bread, yet are not willing to use a replacement part. You also could have gone for YEARS with the rod in the cosmetically impared state. A dab of rust converter on the bare iron would keep it from rusting. Someone on the financial hooks would. By the way, many replacement parts are as good or often better than the original. Remember, the original was bought from the low bid supplier -> not the high quality supplier.
Okay. Let's address one recommended "alternative" solution at a time (i.e., to simply buying the replacement rod from Bradco for $219.00):
1) Do essentially nothing - Not acceptable to me because I don't want the rod to further deteriorate and seals to eventually let go on a client's jobsite or at any other point in time when it could be inconvenient to address it. Being a one machine business, it is important for me to address issues quickly and with repairs that will last. Backup rental machine cost is $250 to $300 per day... and my clients are not impressed at all by equipment failures.
2) Buy a complete new aftermarket cylinder and swap cylinder ends from old cylinder to new cylinder - Not acceptable to me on this repair. Folks forget how much labor costs are up here in New England and how few people up here will even take on this kind of work. They also forget that the Bradco cylinders have some unique design features that would be costly to duplicate or work around. Among other extra costs for this option, I would likely have to run new longer lines to the cylinder connection points (Bradco uses welded hard lines to place hose connection points exactly where they want them). That one cost alone (new hoses) would be more than the cost of the Bradco replacement rod... and I end up with one oddball aftermarket cylinder (real good for trade/resale value, right???). And, so far, no one has actually come up with an aftermarket cylinder that is a reasonable match to the existing cylinder. Not even close. I conservatively figure this option "soup to nuts" up in this area at between $550 and $800. Why would I want a new mismatched cylinder for 2-1/2 to 4 times the cost of the Bradco replacement rod?
3) Have a local shop take my damaged rod and rebuild it using a new hard-chromed rod - This was actually an acceptable approach to me... but the cost would be about double the cost of simply buying a new rod from Bradco. Why would I want to pay double?
john_bud said:
You're a Mechanical Engineer, right ? Buy a wrench or socket / breaker bar of the correct size, add a pipe over the handle so that the distance from nut center to end is equal in feet to the torque value in hundreds of pounds. ie. 4.5 ft for 450 ft-lbs. Then you chain a scale to the pipe at 4.5 ft and you pull it down with 100# of force orthoganal to the pipe in the "righty-tighty" direction. If you are 1/2 starved and don't have the arm beef, make a loop and step on it. Assuming you weigh more than 100#. If you can't fixture it solidly, remount the rod only on the hoe and do it there. You will need loctite 272 on the nut.
jb
Oh, I understand the basics quite well. But thanks for the review.
The main problem is the awkwardness of dealing with the long hard-chromed rod (without damaging it) and the fact that I currently have no mounted vise of sufficient strength (and mounting strength) to take a torque of 785 ft-pounds (+/-) in any plane. I'm sure I'll figure something out, but right now I'm lacking in that capability.
And yes, despite my generic peanut butter-based diet, I am
WELL over 100 pounds!
But at the same time, let's please not forget that I am handicapped since birth with a semi-useless left arm. What you guys do every day without a second thought can be a project requiring major planning and special tools for me... and even then, a day or three of swelling and intense pain if I mess up.
Dougster
