Machine Builders Network+ Forums Machine Builders Network Skid Steer / Attachment Builds 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.

Thats probably what I will find when I try to install my flow control valve on my L-12 exc.! Might have to cobble up a couple of the fittings on it too!

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.

yeah I get most of my stuff online. It's a LOT cheaper for sure But because of all the industry in the area parts are pretty much available for almost anything.

Nothing local here-- or not much anyway! --- A couple places at least know what I am talking about and they say its standard metric shit so at least thats a start! Now to figure the size of the fittings.

Yeah I hate that crap That's like the loader valve I bought on Amazon for the mini hoe. After trying a shitload of fittings and it said it was a number 8 ended up really being 1/2-in pipe with a pain in the ass that was. So I have a shitload of fittings laying around here for just about anything from trying to find the right ones. Discount hydraulic hose, surplus center well there's a couple others in there as well that have very reasonable prices on their fittings. I got a couple of tractor supplies and a Northern tool within 10 mi of me so. Also have a air quip distribution center mostly because we have all the shipyards right here so there's plenty of places to buy local but you pay for them if you buy local. I do like tractor supply for hardware though because they sell it by the pound not by the piece. We have a fastener surplus store that my son gets stuff for me from cuz he lives right over by it and it's way cheaper than anything cuz it's leftover materials from jobs at the shipyard and they sell them to this place for pennies on the dollar so you can get them cheap and they have just about anything in there.

yep I used to buy surplus from Newport News and the Navy there, they had a place called St Juliens Creek Annex I would pickup from and another over by Williamsburg-a big quonset hut,monsterous place that dealt with Navy ship surplus..unbelivable size you had to ride in a golf cart to get around there..never saw a battleship propeller before up close-brand new in the crate..they had 'em stacked up in that place..shipboard switchgear, motors,all kinda stuff