Machine Builders Network+ Forums Thread Like Summary - hydraulic cylinder port modifications

bought a backhoe attachment for my skid steer(compact trackloader) tried to attach it and found the hoses are too short to reach the aux hyd outlets on the loader arm..Just typical issues with these imported attachments are short hoses and foreign hyd standards, at first glance it looks like std.O-ring boss fittings but this hoe arm has metric o-ring fittings that I can't service here,additionally BOTH cylinder ports had stripped out threads..well at least the person before me was consistent with their monkeywrenching. The hyd shop in the big city has the adapters but not me so an easy mod was in order to replace the fittings to allow longer hoses and ease of replacement in the field if so needed.

so point and click Surplus Center to the economical rescue.Surplus Center

Looking down into the fitting port on the bucket curl cylinder you can see the flow restriction-the port is bigger than the actual path into the cylinder bore.I left this alone as it will smooth out the operation so the bucket is controllable and not jerky. 1/4"hoses would be OK flow-wise but I have found bigger diameter hoses are easier to connect with the skid steer couplers and gloved hands.



So the fittings were a metric O-ring boss to some kind of tapered type flare fitting on the hoses, I miked it up found its metric sized.The auction where I bought this attachment had the adapters cross-threaded in backwards on the cylinder, and the hoses detached on the ground,contaminated with dirt..nice going "R.B."..looks like someone tried to assemble it and cross-threaded the ports on the cylinder..well we can fix that with some weld magic over the morning coffee.Otherwise the cylinder looked OK..God only knows what handling damage coulda been done before I put eyes on it.



So I took two forged steel 1/2"NPT right angle threaded adapters, cut the thread portion off and welded them onto the top of the stripped out cylinder ports..finished welds not shown but they should work fine with the new longer hoses. I did angle the end 90deg fitting shown to clear the grease zerk as well.I got good penetration and weld flow so I feel confident that they will be OK..so on to the next project.

yeah Sonny do your research before you go in deep with modifications, I spend half my time here just waiting on parts to arrive via mail or UPS/Fedex. There's only one hyd.supplier closeby and they are high as hell on anything there,they mostly cater to businesses and large contractors..they wanted 18.75 for each adapter fitting to refit the cylinders to SAE O-ring. The new 1/2" NPT hoses were $25each from Surplus Center, so that was an easier fix.