Hyd cylinder rebuild

Wow, I just got the quote for my two loader cyl rebuild. $350 each. They are big for a tractor at 7.4 feet extended, but still that's pretty pricey. The guy said his labor and materials costs have gone up almost 40% in the last 18 months.

It's going to be my forever tractor, so I gave a grumble and said go ahead. Although I'm a big fan of DIY, in this case I just decided to farm out the work and have it done quick and hopefully right.

Comes with all new seals of course, but also a new brass guide bushing, and they will polish the rams so they look like new. My rams were badly stained but not pitted and the seals are junk. Leaked a lot and I had to add hydro fluid constantly.

wow, i replaced the seals in my loader on the 560 like 3 years ago . the seal kits were around 200 for both. but i guess thats the price a
person has to pay to farm something out.

It does seem pricey by diy standards but in 2012 when I was
doing a bunch of construction ones with a real cylinder bench
a cylinder that size would be considered small (probably
would have just set the barrel in the press and skipped the
bench) and would take about hour and a half to 2 hours if your
taking your time and being careful. Back then the caterpillar
side was 120 per hour and Ag 90. So 180 times 2 your at 360
doesnt leave much for bushings and seals but they probably
arent painted yellow. I think you did fine especially
considering what has happened recently in the world

seems like a pretty good deal to me. i paid $391.00 today for a seal kit for 307 cat excavator boom cylinder, and i'm doing the work haha.

Yeah, guys it seems kinda funny to me. For 50 years I've been a DIY person. I would have tore them apart, got some rouge and a buffer and buffed those pistons myself for 2-ish hours. Then pry out the guide bushings, clean it all up, install the o-rings and sealing rings, scraper and so on. I'd be 6 hours or more and $240 in materials but it would be done my way.

Now, I find I can just write a check and by magic in 2-3 days they come back all cleaned, painted, and ready to install. Takes me 20 min to put them back on and my wallet is lighter, but my tractor works just as well, and I didn't have to spend a full day in the shop.

This is on a 961 Ford with great rear tires, a strong engine and 6ft wide loader bucket. It does all the jobs I need and I only paid $1400 for it 4 years ago. Had some tuning problems for a while, and found a leak in the intake manifold. The next job might be a 12V conversion as it cranks pretty slow these days.

The value of the dollar has indeed gone down, i.e. "inflation", but that's still gouging.

Last year I resealed the crowd cylinder on my Komatsu backhoe, a good sized cylinder ~4.5" bore or so. The seal kit was about $50 and it took me about 1hr to do the work, keeping the cylinder on the backhoe while I did the work.

I figure my time is $50/hr or so, which makes it a $100 job DIY. Add some reasonable overhead and profit and it's still a $200 job max.

I just had a new Cylinder made for my Case 586C Forklift. One shop wanted $3500.00. Friend om mine made it for $1500.00. He said his
Employee benefits cost him $28,000 per month. Quality work costs lots of money today. Lots of hidden costs the average guy don't think
about.

(quoted from post at 09:12:54 03/01/23) I just had a new Cylinder made for my Case 586C Forklift. One shop wanted $3500.00. Friend om mine made it for $1500.00. He said his
Employee benefits cost him $28,000 per month. Quality work costs lots of money today. Lots of hidden costs the average guy don't think
about.

Click to expand...

Making a new cylinder, and particularly a forklift one which is often multistage is vastly more involved than simply putting new seals in an existing cylinder and cleaning it up.

Yes, overhead costs are substantial, however if you don't have enough volume of business to cover them that is your issue and you don't just price gouge to make up for your lack of developing and managing your market.

I called around and gave the size to a couple places. They were all telling me over $300 each. Shop rates, are not the same as labor rates. The guy actually doing the work may be making $20-25/hour but the shop rate is $70/hour. There is way more than an hour per cyl involved including polish the two rams. I guessed at 3 hours per cyl, and $200 in materials with new bronze guides.

Got to thinking, my company charges $425/hour for me with a min 2 hour onsite visit. I guess I'll pay the bill and like it.

The price quote had me bugged so I called the shop and asked them if there was a cheaper way to do this. The guy could tell I wasn't a hyd ram expert and he took the time to explain. I didn't know, but it's more work than I first thought. They have to set the whole thing in a large lathe, and cut off the end of the cyl. He asked me if I noticed a weld line in the cyl and frankly I said no, I never noticed.

Well, these are old cylinders and they are built very tough. The brass guide sleeve is put on from the inside of the tube, and all the seals below it on the pressure disc are put on from inside the tube as well. Then, they put the scraper seals, and compression o-rings on from the end of the cyl, and the whole thing goes back together, they put the cutoff cyl piece on the long tube, and they have to weld the two back together, then they pressure test it so they know there's no leaks in the weld.

Of course, the ram gets polished and checked for straight as well as the new seals, and welding. I thanked him for the info and decided that with all the labor incl welding the price was suitable. Take a look at this pic and you can see the weld line in the tube where they separate it to replace the stuff down in the tube. Later versions the whole thing comes out the end and there is no inner collar to hold the brass sleeve. Old school.