Hydraulic ram with knicks in the chrome – DIY repair possible?

When I built my log splitter I wasn’t overly confident that it would work so bought a used hydraulic ram. I think it had seen service on a trailer. There were a few knicks in the chrome on the ram which had worn the seals. I replaced the seals and they have survived thousands of cycles but have now given up again.

Having a closer look at the knicks there are a few with edges that must be causing the damage. Would it be possible to polish the worst of their peaks off with some emery paper and fill the troughs with araldite and polish back to level with emery?

yes in theory – that was the approved method of bodging motorcyle forks that pitted. Even a polish with emery might well help or you can get them rechromed IIRC

I’ve seen ridges around damage on rams taken off by using a new wet stone along the length of the ram. As using emery may cause more damage.

How bad is the damage? It’s worth giving it a go with epoxy/ nail varnish etc

Might be time to trawl eBay/ gumtree for another ram

The damage is very small, there is no rust on the ram at all. When I take it to get new seals on Monday I’ll ask the guys there if it’s doable.

Thing is I’ve built the whole splitter around this unique ram’s end fittings and don’t want to have to rejig the whole thing. Knowing that it works would make a DIY fettle worthwhile. The seals are reasonably inexpensive

Stone any sharp / square edges off

Clean rod well

Use chemical metal epoxy (best stuff i find is ‘JB Weld’)

Carefully flat the expoxy back to the shaft, using fine grade wet/dry, and finish with a polish from either a buffing wheel or using a soft nylon scouring pad.

Good as new, will last forever**

(** not actually forever, but long enough 😉

This looks good

Remove the abrasions as suggested.
If the weeping is bad, try resizing seals for a tighter fit rather than getting the same again. We had to do this with several rams on our old timber crane, used a hydraulic specialist in Hereford, but should be someone up your way.

have done sealing repairs on chrome sealing surface with unibond repair metal for good epoxy before emerying back and shaping – then polishing up to the best surface i could get.

Still seem to be alive.

Not sure what pressures are in your ram mind. as i was only doing the swivels in my land rover with it to hold in EP90 at atmospheric 😀 – but they have neither leaked nor corroded further !

It’s actually worse at low pressure because there is no pressure to ‘energise’ the sealing lips. On a high pressure ram, the lip seal gets pushed into the rod by the pressure of the fluid behind it. On LR swivels, the oil just slowly drains out under gravity…….. (in fact, not just on the swivels 😉

Micromesh rather than emery and blend it out. Time consuming but the best way

An update. I bought a diamond sharpening stone which buffed out the worst of the raised ridges. I used some 1200 grit wet and dry paper then to polish the chrome. I filled the worst of the Knicks with JB weld, the indentations were very small.

I’ve fitted the new seals and given it a quick test run. All looks good so far.

If it fails again, then send it to WFE or similar to have it built up, turned down and rechromed. It’s a lot cheaper than you’d expect and you’ll have a near enough new cylinder at the end.

with regards to this and other similar stuff (like sanctions) If its not gouged then the options i would suggest are

smooth any edges and fit new seals.

grind chrome regrind or flash chrome and new seals. depending on the thickness.

id shy away from filling it with anything tbh. especially if its a small amount of damage.