Hey all- popped a boom cylinder seal, and have a seal kit on the way. I'm thinking to remove the boom cylinder and take it to a shop to have the seals replaced. How hard is it to remove the boom cylinder on this hoe? Any advise/tips/tricks would be greatly appreciated. BTW: I'll have an engine hoist on-site, and an impact gun as well.
Stretch out the boom, stick, bucket on the ground. Work your levers to remove pressure, if you have a gland wrench try to loose the gland a turn or two then snug it back, install your hoist and remove you pin from the rod end. Start your machine and run the rod in to clear the ears, or you can run it in so it's easier to bleed the oil later from the gland end. shut off machine and work your levers, remove the hoses and spin your gland out some. you can remove the piston/rod / gland and leave the tube on a block or carry the whole cylinder, you can also leave the rod out farther if your going to slide it out of the tube on the machine and not have to bump it that far. It's not a bad job once the gland is out and piston bolt out. The rod bolt is 1450-1700 ft. lbs., the gland can be 100-400 ft. lbs., you may have to due some tapping to loosen the threads up with some pen oil.
Hey, if your going to a hyd shop, just run it in after unhooking the rod end, relieve the pressure, unhook the hoses and secure, unpin the tube end, load and go.
Great! Doesn't sound too bad. Same basic idea for a stabilizer cylinder? One of them falls down (no fluid leaking) - any way to tell of the cylinder seal or valve is the part leaking? (is cylinder seal more likely?)
On the stab cylinder tube if there is teeth marks or dings it may have transferred to the inner tube and worn threw the piston packing and grooved the piston as it traveled up and down. You can unhook the line at the rod end and cap, then gently try to push the cylinder down to raise that side, better if you have a hose to run into a bucket to keep the oil mess down, a constant flow would mean a bad packing, piston bolt loose. It could be some other issues but that is where I would start. Caution should be used on hyd systems do to the pressures involved, always think what is going to happen while testing and use eye protection and a means to check for leaks other than your hands.
Thanks! Assuming I go into the hydraulic shop with the boom cylinder and a seal set, what's a good price on having them repack?
$ 300.00 or less would be a good price, depends on the shop and equipment they have to work with. That gland can be a PITA to get out at times, even with the cylinder tables and hyd spanner wrenches they use to loosen them with. Being open minded, hour to take apart, hour to cleanup and hour to put it back together X their shop rate. I have done them in less then a hour, with a wash and wipe out. If you have to hone and clean up then you start adding time. If I take one in I try to have the gland loose if possible, have had to put them in the lathe and take the end off to get the rod and pistons out and then cut the gland out, re weld the tube end, put in a new gland. I don't mind paying a fare price and they will not be there when you need them if they don't make a little profit.
Thanks - helpful to know a good general figure.
One more question: what tools are needed to remove the boom cylinder pins?
Well, the job wasn't too bad. I had just the right tools on hand, and the only hitch was I had to use a bottle jack to get the lower pin boss to separate from the frame (was tight, cylinder didn't want to lift off). Honestly the biggest pain was all of the oil that leaked out of the hydraulic lines. Tried to plug them up, but results were marginal. Anyone know of a good set of plastic hydraulic line caps? That would have made life a *lot* easier. I decided to take care of my stabilizer cylinder (that falls down over days) at the same time while I was at it.
RE: plug and cap kit- is this what I want? "JIC (37 DEGREE FLARE) (ALSO KNOWN AS "AN")" ?
Good job. Yes, from what I can see you have the cone tipped JIC fitting on the cylinders, just need a handful of the plugs, and caps if you want to seal up the cylinder ports as well.