I have a leak at the weld on a swing cylinder, it mostly drools, but occasionally gets a toothpick sized stream coming out of it. Would there be any issue with me grinding it out a little where its leaking, clean it up well and stick weld just enough to seal it up again - while it is on the machine? I am more of a hobbiest welder, and have not done anything on a hydraulic part. I would imagine I would want to minimize the time so It would not burn thru. .
Looks like brass, either factory or somebody already tried to repair it. You won't be able to weld to that, not with steel rod anyway.
Take the line off, use a carbide burr to grind it out and braze or silver solder it up.
Yes, you can repair it, but you will need to remove and dismantle the cylinder in order to clean the oil out of the crack.
and put a new seal kit,, not many short cuts on repairing equiptment
Although i think the permanent fix is to pull it disassemble it and clean it then braze it good......... I have in the past with steel welds been able to smack the leaking welded area with a ball peen hammer and stop minor leaks might be worth a shot depending on how bad it is until you can tear it down for the right fix........ good luck
If you try to braze it, be sure that the cylinder is sucked in so you don't damage the seals on the piston. Andrew
Brass is no good for repairing hydraulic cylinders. The heat to put that bit of snot on the fitting has likely ruined the gland packing already. It will also likely make getting the gland off a problem. Lantraxco and Cmark both are right on from my experience. I have stick welded a leak like that to get by but they were all only temporary fixes for a couple of days till I could down the machine for the proper repair.
Gotcha
Being a trunion cylinder........a proper fix is going to be a pita......sorry. Ed
Yeah, I wish I knew about the leak when I had it all separated and that cylinder moved to the side to allow for the valve rod to be removed. Drats. I think I can take it off without having to separate the hoe, gonna be an arm worker though....
Hi, I did fix a cylinder yesterday on a J5. I can't tell you how long it will last, but the leak was gone when I tested for 10 seconds. However, it was at the other end of the cylinder., so I unhooked the end to repair, removed all the oil, extended the cylinder as much as possible so all seals are 2 feet away from where I was soldering. I grinded the metal to get a good surface and also blew compressed air to remove any oil left. I'd guess you will have a better chance of success if you remove the cylinder and dismantle it because of where the leak is. jf
The piece attached to the cylinder looks cast and I wouldn't be surprised if it comes brazed from the factory although it may have been repaired since it looks a little crude. I'm no one to be giving welding advice but I've recently read that aluminum bronze ERCuAl-A2 is sometimes used to join dissimilar metals and even brass and cast. I know it comes in TIG and MIG formats - not sure about stick. I picked up a roll of .035 mig wire to build up a cast bearing surface. The wire is brass colored and uses argon for a shielding gas. Anyone have any experience with it? Here is what they say about it: ERCuAl-A2 (Aluminum Bronze A2) Mig WIRE DIa. 0.35" Lbs. 10lb spool CLASSIFICATION • AWS 5.7 Class ERCuAl-A2/ASME SFA 5.7 Class ERCuAl-A2 Si - 0.10% Fe - 1.5% Cu - Rem% Zn - 0.2% Al - 8.5-11% Pb - 0.02% DESCRIPTION • ERCuAl-A2 is a copper, aluminum, iron based welding alloy used for GTAW and GMAW welding. APPLICATIONS Overlaying or building up bearing surfaces. Joining copper alloys and many ferrous and non-ferrous alloys. Joining dissimilar metals such as certain cast irons, high and low carbon steels, copper, bronzes, and copper nickel alloys. More info. here: http://www.weldingwire.com/Images/Interior/documentlibrary/aluminum bronze a2.pdf
It was brass, and it looks like it was a repair job. I took it off, and ground it down to the native metal, and found the crack. Going to take it to the machine shop and see what they can do for me. Thanks for the info! Once you spotted that it was brass, I was out of my knowledge realm.
It could be a rough looking cast steel fitting since it looks like it was welded originally. If all the brazing is ground out and the cylinder heated up to cook any last remants of oil out, it would be an easy weld repair by a competent welder if it is cast steel. If it is cast iron would require some more expertise and closer adhereance to procedures. Brazing would be an option but would require a lot of heat. The machine shop should be able to tell you what material it is.
It will be cast steel and a easy fix with the cylinder out and the hydraulic oil cleaned up.
I ended up taking it to the machine shop, gutted. They put several passes of weld around it, and told me that it was a tough job - as it was just an awful metal to weld. It does not look bad at all, and I have it up and running like a champ now. The best $10 spent. ( which is what he charged me for the job ) - niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.
That was a good deal!!!
Probably hard to weld due to the oil in the joint, maybe they should have preheated it good? Any "real" welders out there have thoughts on that? Also if there was any brass left from the other attempt to fix it that could cause problems.
This is all true, in addition cast steel can be hard to weld. It is somewhere between steel and cast iron as far as weldability goes.
Yes, usually somewhat porous, with inclusions of gawd knows what. You never really get all the oil out of anything, even by heating in my experience, and oil turns to carbon which is not helpful. Brazing up cast iron thermostat or water pump housings is the worst, you can never get the glycol out of cast iron.