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Whew! My first cylinder repair underway.

AirBornOne

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2008
Messages
146
Location
S.F.Bay Area
Greetings gang and Merry Christmas.
Just wanted to share that I had to begin repairs on my TB-016's arm cylinder the other day (lotta oil dripping out the dust seal).
Now I've read here & there before about how difficult a cylinder could be to open up but Zowie!
I even bought the nice cast spanner wrench to engage the notch in the cap or rod cover as my manual describes it.Even with a 5' pipe for leverage all I managed to do was chew up the notches before the wrench sprang off the cap.:Banghead
I'm ashamed to say I ended up gripping the cap with a pipe wrench and severly beating on it with a 3# hammer :eek: So now I have another job of filing,grinding,smoothing all the @$^&# teeth marks in the cap.I won't be able to reuse the notches so I'll have to grind some new ones.
Sheesh.
So now I have the cylinder apart,it's beautiful inside.And the rod looks great except for what looks to be a new (before dis-assy) scuff near the clevis end.I can just 'feel' it with my finger so I'll buff it out (looking for some crocus cloth).
A question I have is about the rod bushing.Are these usually coated? Mine looks & feels like it has a grayish colored teflon(?) coating.
I didn't notice it until I started cleaning things up and was thinking there might have been a film deposited from it's 10year or so life.Aside from the 'coating' looking like it's coming off in spots there does not appear to be any mechanical wear on the bushing.I'll put up some picts tomorrow or so.
Would like to hear your thoughts about this.Thanks.
Dunno how I'm gonna be able to re-torque the piston and the cap (maybe customize a socket to fit-slice in two-fit to cap & pipe wrench away???)
Happy Trails
J.
 

alrman

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2009
Messages
3,303
Location
QLD Australia
Occupation
Diesel Fitter;Small Business Owner;Cleaner
If the coating on the bush is coming off, you should replace it. I have found in the past, the small pieces of coating material will continue to come off & get caught up in the seal lip - causing leakage.
If you don't have the new bush & are in an isolated location & need to get back to work, carefully use a flapper wheel or sanding drum on a die grinder & remove the coating.
 

AirBornOne

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2008
Messages
146
Location
S.F.Bay Area
Thanks alrman,
I think I'm more concerned about scarring the rod after removing the coating.My seal kits we're about $40.00 so I think I'd prefer to re-do a seal job until I can get the replacement bushing.
I did find out that teflon coatings are common on rod bushings however rod bushings are not all to common of a commodity among seal kit suppliers.Nor wear rings.Go figure:beatsme
When I first removed the gland,the bushing looked fine.Uniform in appearance w/o any lines,grooves or patches apparant.After cleaning (wiping) a few times I found one or two small 'patch' areas,like the coating was missing.The last time I looked at it I noticed a line from one end to the other that I could just barely feel with my finger.
So now I'm thinking something got caught up in the wiper,scuffed the rod and scarred the bushing.Does this sound right?
The piston & seal looks fine as well as the interior so I'll be reassembling after resealing the gland & polishing the rod w/o touching the piston until I can get the correct wear rings & rod bushing.Got work to do:thumbsup
J
 

AirBornOne

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2008
Messages
146
Location
S.F.Bay Area
Picts included

After getting the cylinder re-assembled I gotta say I screwed up some..
All chewed up II sm.jpg
Screwing the gland back in I remembered the 'lock' as mentioned in the repair instructions.Why didn't I think of that Before I pulled the gland off ? :eek:
Gland lock sm.jpg
Realistically though,I doubt that had much if anything to do with the difficulty in loosening the gland.
The scuff on the rod occurred from my attempts to loosen the gland while the cylinder was still installed on the arm.It was too clean a mark to have happened while working.I think the marks on the rod bushing prove that.
Rod scar II sm.jpgRod bush II sm.jpgRod bush III sm.jpg
 
Last edited:

AirBornOne

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2008
Messages
146
Location
S.F.Bay Area
The rod polished out pretty good in spite of not having a better choice of grits/supplies.
Rod polishing sm.jpg

I would have preferred some 400,800, and crocus cloth to the 320 (could be 400 though) and the automotive polishing compound but using the compound with a piece of leather belting wrapped around the rod worked really well.
The rod looks better than what the pict shows.
The proof will be in the arm cylinder working as designed w/o any leaks.
J
 
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