I've never done any other cylinders other than those which are on my machine so my experience is limited.
For years, I would pull an offending cylinder pair off, take them to the shop, pay to have it done.
Finally, knowing I'm mechanically inclined....I thought what do I have to lose to try one myself??!! So I did.
I very much regret having taken the others to the shop to do what I could have done faster and less expensive.
I don't know what their names are but one of the tools I have is sort of like an ice pick but, instead of going to a point at the end (I have that one too) I have a set of them.....one is straight (like the ice pick) one has a 45 degree bend at the tip, one has a 90 degree another has a hook at the end. I've found these to come in handy.
When I put the piston seal on, I put painters tape over the threads and just took my time. By the time I got to my third cylinder, I realized I can go ahead and put some PULL on it to stretch it over the end of my piston.
If you're mechanically inclined, resourceful have a general set of tools (one thing you might need is that spanner tool in the above PDF.... I have one of those, but didn't need it. I can use a wrench (pipe) on mine. I have the spanner item to do the height cylinders on my 15' mower but so far, have decided the cut height is fine so just unhooked the cylinders so they don't leak.
You need to be in your comfort zone, but I'm of the camp that says what do you have to lose? If you get it off, get it apart.... can't get it back together, you can then have it done for you.
And no, you can't leave hoses connected unless you're able to do rebuild while on machine (or at least the initial loosen/re-tighten of the end cap) Looking at my industrial, I could do all of them while on the machine, would need to unhook ram end, withdraw rod....then have at it. Still, you're going to have suction in there so you'd have to loosen the hoses.
Oh, and have a bucket ready. You're going to have some amount of fluid drain out whether or not you do them yourself or take them off to have done..... that residual fluid in the cylinder gets me every time!!
Oh, and I've now discovered I could have left my backhoe trunion cylinders in place to redo them instead of the herculean gymnastics I went through to remove them and worse.....remount them.
Live & learn. Once I realized that.... AND saw the pins holding my stabilizers onto machine were frozen in place, I decided NOT to fight the pins and simply rebuilt the stabilizers while they were on the machine.
Give it a whirl!!!
