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This will be an interesting thread moving forward......

JLarson

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2020
Messages
656
Location
AZ
Occupation
Owner- civil and heavy repair/fab company
We're 500 minimum plus seals on small cylinders, 4"x48" and under, for shop rebuilds right now. Clean, teardown, rebuild, paint, cap and wrap or pallet depending on the cylinder and how we're sending it back.
 

Zewnten

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
553
Location
Earth
Not sure how they charged it, it wasn't an exact price but told it would be right around there and that was enough for me to say nope. I called two different shops and both said the exact same $1000.

Some jobs I price a certain way because I know others do and I almost feel guilty invoicing because of how much money i'm making so I do get it. If they want to charge that they can by all means, they just won't get my money because i'll do it myself.

No offense but your home shop also doesn't have the EPA or canadian equivalent up your butt about oil messes. It's a huge deal at dealers and rebuilding cylinders always makes a mess so there's some of it. Also I haven't done a ton of rebuilds but several were beyond repair but know one knew until too late or something else went wrong and now the shop has to eat the cylinder.
 

JD955SC

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2011
Messages
1,349
Location
The South
No offense but your home shop also doesn't have the EPA or canadian equivalent up your butt about oil messes. It's a huge deal at dealers and rebuilding cylinders always makes a mess so there's some of it. Also I haven't done a ton of rebuilds but several were beyond repair but know one knew until too late or something else went wrong and now the shop has to eat the cylinder.

I’ve broken cylinder glands breaking them loose from the cylinder barrel, stripped threads off removing the nut, encountered bent rods that needed to be replaced, and so on
 

suladas

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2016
Messages
1,731
Location
Canada
No offense but your home shop also doesn't have the EPA or canadian equivalent up your butt about oil messes. It's a huge deal at dealers and rebuilding cylinders always makes a mess so there's some of it. Also I haven't done a ton of rebuilds but several were beyond repair but know one knew until too late or something else went wrong and now the shop has to eat the cylinder.

For sure, there is far more expenses in running a shop. I would expect a hydraulic shop would charge like $150/hr for repairs, but they were quoting like $400 which is insane. I didn't ask, but if they took it apart and determined it was junk, I would expect to pay something for disassembly if I didn't buy a new one from them. They were quoting the $1000 based on everything being good and just replacing seals, anything more would be extra. When I got a new hydraulic cylinder for my dump truck they opened up the old one to see if it was worth fixing, and didn't charge because I bought a new one from them.
 

Zewnten

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
553
Location
Earth
For sure, there is far more expenses in running a shop. I would expect a hydraulic shop would charge like $150/hr for repairs, but they were quoting like $400 which is insane. I didn't ask, but if they took it apart and determined it was junk, I would expect to pay something for disassembly if I didn't buy a new one from them. They were quoting the $1000 based on everything being good and just replacing seals, anything more would be extra. When I got a new hydraulic cylinder for my dump truck they opened up the old one to see if it was worth fixing, and didn't charge because I bought a new one from them.

Maybe they didn't want the job? I remember deere alloted something like 2 to 4 hours to rebuild a cylinder depending on size, you said they were off of a CTL so with $150? seal kits each, yeah I see it. But that being said CTL cylinders should really only take an hour each.
 

Steve Favia

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2019
Messages
170
Location
illinois
Occupation
Retired local 150 Operating Engineer
Had my 580k stabilizer cyclinder repacked,said the rods were bent, not sure about that.Charged me 400.00 bucks each, that was a few years ago.Did my crowd cyclinder last year for 500.00 right now I’m leak free,next time I might try it,have a childhood friend that’s an excellent mechanic that could help me if I need it.
 

Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
12,260
Location
Canada
I think some shops will tell you there is more wrong with your cylinders than there actually is. Once they have your cylinders you're kind of at their mercy. I had my bucket cylinders done and was originally told would be about $800 for both. They were weeping just a little too much. When I went to pick them up it was over $1750. They said they were bent .010" and they had to be re-chromed, etc., etc. They were Cat cylinders that have thicker hard chrome that some other cylinders. When I had to get my stick cylinder repaired because the piston bolt pulled out, another shop just heavily polished the rod and it was good. The bucket cylinders were much smaller and I question if they were as bad as they said. They completely rebuilt everything including the seals for the pins. A shop I go to for hoses got into doing cylinders and they're usually very reasonable. I took just the rods in from my 4 in 1 bucket to get new seals. That's all I wanted. They charged me about $100ea. for the seal kit an hour each to install them. They didn't polish the rods but said they looked good. I put the cylinders back together and no problems. It's my go to shop now. They generally have the best price on hoses and make them while you wait. Very good customer service.
 

hosspuller

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2014
Messages
1,869
Location
North Carolina
My experience with hydraulic shops are: they do quality work (Most times) they want the cylinder to be up to OEM specs when it leaves their shop.

BUT, most hydraulic cylinders are not critical. Failure or leakage can be tolerated. For hobby machines like mine, cost is more significant than failure or downtime. A slightly bent or dinged rod or leak down on a stabilizer cylinder is nothing. I don't need the cylinder to be honed. It's not aerospace performance. I can stop anytime and get a cool drink to ponder my situation.

The trick is to find the shop that understands my situation. I want to know the state of the cylinder but let me decide how much $ to put into it.
 

Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
12,260
Location
Canada
My experience with hydraulic shops are: they do quality work (Most times) they want the cylinder to be up to OEM specs when it leaves their shop.

BUT, most hydraulic cylinders are not critical. Failure or leakage can be tolerated. For hobby machines like mine, cost is more significant than failure or downtime. A slightly bent or dinged rod or leak down on a stabilizer cylinder is nothing. I don't need the cylinder to be honed. It's not aerospace performance. I can stop anytime and get a cool drink to ponder my situation.
That could be it, they figure every cylinder is super critical and don't consider that for a hobby machine it doesn't have to be 100% to factory standards. I didn't really need the cylinders painted and figured they probably charged $100 just for painting. I also don't think they necessarily needed to be honed. They were just weeping at the gland nut seals.
 

suladas

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2016
Messages
1,731
Location
Canada
Maybe they didn't want the job? I remember deere alloted something like 2 to 4 hours to rebuild a cylinder depending on size, you said they were off of a CTL so with $150? seal kits each, yeah I see it. But that being said CTL cylinders should really only take an hour each.

Seal kits were only $50 each, so $450 just for labour each. Yea they are small cylinders and not hard to do at all.
 

JLarson

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2020
Messages
656
Location
AZ
Occupation
Owner- civil and heavy repair/fab company
Coming from the other side, your customer who you let go out with a dinged rod and it starts leaking, will always conveniently forget that he told you not to worry about the ding when it was apart in your shop. So you do them all the same, 100% or not at all.

This ^ We have to warranty it, DIY doesn't, any future warranty/comeback work can be a real bite in the overhead.

Proper pricing filters out a lot of trouble right off the bat.
 

catman13

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2011
Messages
435
Location
oregon usa
Occupation
refrigeration engineer/excavation contractor
dont be too hard on the rebuild shops, they are putting their neck and reputation on the line when they rebuild the cylinders,
remember you dealing with high pressures and if it fails and someone gets hurt or killed, and the lawyers will want to make someone pay that is why they dont want to cut corners
 

Vetech63

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2016
Messages
6,362
Location
Oklahoma
I got the ventilation system back in this paver today.
VF1.jpg
As I had mentioned when disassembling this mess......its piece by piece. Same way going back together. I silicone that venturi plate to the new base weldment for a reason.........
VF2.jpg
Once you battle your way to get the shroud in position, all the bolts come up from the inside of the housing...........so you have to contortion yourself into many uncomfortable positions to start and tighten each bolt. I threaded the top one in backwards to help hold the entire thing in position then secured it with a nut on the bottom side. There is no room for 2 arms in here unless your one of those midget Olympian contortionists.
VF3.jpg
I had to pry 2 hoses out of the way to get the fan in position then secured it. The rest was hooking up the hoses I removed and topping off the tank with oil.
 
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