Learned lesson on disassembly of cylinder

[crazyal]

On my case backhoe there's a hole that a screw goes in to lock the gland. Half of the hole is on the tube and the other half is on the gland. One of them the screw head broke off, it's not a large diameter screw and it's very short. If you didn't know the screw was there you would have to shear it with brute force.

When I rebuild them I use a 4' pipe wrench and if possible I try to loosen them up before taking them off of the machine. The teeth will leave marks on the gland but I've never had one I couldn't remove. I've tried the gland tool and other means but usually do more damage to the gland than the pipe wrench.

 

[dfkrug]

When I rebuild them I use a 4' pipe wrench and if possible I try to loosen them up before taking them off of the machine. The teeth will leave marks on the gland but I've never had one I couldn't remove. I've tried the gland tool and other means but usually do more damage to the gland than the pipe wrench.

I only use the big pipe wrench if someone else already marked up the
gland before I got it. The big pipe wrench does work, but I have been
trying something less likely to leave a mark: I tap a tapered roller from
an old roller bearing into the holes of the gland. Then I can use a big
wrench with a rag and the temporary pins won't let it slip.

This only works for the gland type with external holes on the sides.

I have not yet run into a locking screw like you describe, but I will keep
a lookout for them.

 

[Ford tractor]

Before I knew too much about cylinders, I took one over from a customer for his log splitter. Well week later he picked it up , $300 bill to rebuild. Then about month later I brought one over for another friend who knew the guys and what's actually in it. $75 total. I have no problem bringing cylinders into having them fixed but when there is about $30 in parts that wear out I sure can't see paying 270 in labor. If I had known it was gunna be $300 I'd bought a new one.

I was given the same soak'em discount before. Paying MORE to repack a cylinder than the cost of a replacement. It made me get off my butt and find sources of seals and packing. I recently bought enough packing for 10 cylinders of various sizes and spent under 130 bucks. I really dislike paying hundreds of dollars for 1/2 hour of labor and 500% markup on packing.

Oh, the expensive shop rebuilt cylinder started leaking like a sieve a year later because they didn't loctite the nut. Packing was damaged from that too. Nice. Spend a lot and get little.

 

[PILOON]

One of my FEL cylinders got a pretty bad nick or scratch on the shaft from , I guess, a chunk pf granite that loged itself between the shaft and the FEL arm.
2" X 28" or so cyl.
The local shop charged me $100 to repair it!
In fact he machened a complete new shaft, chromed and threaded the end plus all the packings seals etc.
Thought it was an OK deal plus I got to keep a neat length of 1" shafting that I later cut to make pins.