Hello, I have a pretty good leak on my Cat 426 boom cylinder. I was wondering the best tool to use to unscrew the gland on the cylinder to put new seals in it. The gland face has the four square notches in it, not the round pin holes. Last time I made a tool but it only worked fairly well. Has anyone used the OTC 1266 spanner wrench on the glands with the square notches? Also wondering if anyone had used HW replacement seals. Thanks in advance for the help. YVC
IMHO, remove the cylinder and take it to someone that repairs them all day, every day. They have the tools to do it right. By the time you fight with it, you'll be money ahead. Ed <----learned long ago......
Never used that OTC wrench, but have cut several spanner type wrenches out of some 3/8" steel. As long as it grips well, you should be able to remove the gland. We've even made a few wrenches out of 5/8" steel and used a sledge hammer on the wrench handle to persuade the nut loose.
Did you just cut the wrench out of a piece of 5/8" flat and then weld 3/8" square to it to line up with the notches? Thanks
Yes, we cut the wrench out of plate steel, including the tab which fits into the notch. I'll find one and take a pic.
Not sure if I'm doing this right.
This one was cut from 3/8 steel. Not the prettiest tool but it got the job done. I believe this was used on a steering cylinder on an old D400D.
Hey, Thanks for send the picture. Did that work on the type that have the square notches on the top(face) of the gland.? Tight as those things are it would put a lot of torque on just the one tab.
HeavyEquipmentForums go to post #7 to see another way to make a gland wrench. Fit that over the eye on the rod so it's not to loose, and use a ratchet strap around the other end of the cylinder, and it's much less likely to slip off. Four teeth spreads the load out. You just need a big enough gorilla.
One reason I'm glad I was able to retire a year ago in April is the "safety guys" where I worked would freak out if the saw us making or using a tool like those. For forty years we made and used tools just like those and as we knew they might fail we were very careful to not get in harms way on the chance one did fail. None ever did that I recall. But now days if it don't have some manufacture's name on it and a part number they get all nervous. Then again they have no problem pulling a cylinder and take it to a shop where some guy is going to do the exact same thing we would have done. It's not that they care if someone gets hurt as long as their liability is safe!
Most likely you will end up at a hydraulic repair shop. The nut on the end of the rod that retains the piston is very tight , like 3000 ft lbs or more. I tried to do my own , fought it for two days then went packing to the shop. If memory serves me right its a 2.5" nut fine thread.
I don't remember exactly what this wrench was made for(D400D steer cylinder I believe) but, yes we've made several wrenches like this and had success getting those type gland nuts removed. Also have made hex type wrenches for packing nuts in the 2 1/2- ~4" range, and used a sledge hammer to break them loose. Kshansen's post sums it up well tho. We had a job to get done, didn't have the tooling, so we improvised. Not the best way to go about things, but the boss wasn't gonna spring for a high dollar tool that would possibly never be used again. And the safety guy would not approve. (That's if he even knew what he was looking at). Nowadays, I'll look up the spec on what the the torque is for the packing/ piston nut, and if it's very high we'll just send it to the cylinder shop. We have one that'll pick up, repair and deliver the cylinders to us. And they do excellent work.
On the farm we just weld a solid piece of steel to the gland nut. once the gland nut breaks free we rebuild the seals, assemble the cylinder and cut the steel off. We then smooth over the weld area. This has worked on all the stubborn glands that a wrench would not work on.