HSI Cylinder Center
Hydraulic Specialty just completed building their new Cylinder Center. The Cylinder Center allows HSI to safely and efficiently work on medium and large cylinders of all lengths up to 20 ft. and 18” bores.
The Cylinder center allows our technicians to take stubborn cylinders apart, and collect the oil that was left in the cylinder by the customer so it doesn’t all run on the floor. It also merged the hone we had into the cylinder center frame, so the new machinery takes up less floor space.
Cylinder disassembly is often challenging for the technician to manage. Cylinder heads often are rusted to or corroded to the barrel because it could have been years since it was last apart. Another problem is related to snap ring grooves that are burred and prevent the head from being pulled out.
Doing this work on small cylinders is a challenge, on larger cylinders, almost impossible to do by hand.
Working on large cylinders requires the technician to keep the cylinder and rod in alignment when removing or installing the rod and piston from the barrel. The cylinder center design allows for easy alignment, and the ability to remove or install the rod assembly with a movable head that ratchets back and forth down the frame. The head is capable of pulling up to 10,000 lbs of force to remove stubborn rods and pistons.
Cylinders also require the piston nuts to be torqued back onto the rod. Large excavator cylinders require up to 20,000 ft/lbs of torque to correctly torque the nuts so they don’t come loose. The cylinder center allows us to hold and torque any shaft up to 30,000 ft/lbs.
The 40 ft length of the bed allows us to take long cylinders apart and also hone long barrels if needed.
We have built two of these for other customers, and we finally had the time to build one for ourselves.
The frame, hydraulic, and electrical systems were designed and built in-house. Tom Nelson had built these in the past, but Jeff Arbogast, Tom, and our technicians collaborated to make changes that made this the best design yet. Almost everyone in the shop worked on this to get it done.
This piece of equipment allows our cylinder technician to safely work on larger cylinders and gives us the confidence that we can handle larger cylinders that are in need of repair. It also increases labor efficiency by reducing cleanup time and mess every time we take one of these apart.
Contact us today for more information!
