SNS 262: Machine Grease Points, Bush Hog Hydraulic Cylinder Rebuild, Tap Wrenches 

I'm a farmer who has rebuilt a lot of hydraulic cylinders, this is the best video I've seen about it and I learned somethings too. My dad and I were both waiting to see you struggle putting in the inside seal, the worst part of the job. Then you pull out a tool I've never heard of or seen before, that seal twister, and bam your done in seconds. Thanks for filming this. That little bit will save me a lot of struggle in the future.

I can remember hanging on to a 2:1 reduction handle while tapping a 3” thread on a radial arm drill. The boss saw my feet starting st skid across the floor so yelled hang (insert 65 year old Hungarian accent) on! Keep going! and he ran over and grabbed the handle with me. It was at that point the tap stuck completely and threw us both across the shop. We hit the deck in a heap an he was laughing his head off. Flying through the air I assumed I was going to get fired. Later, I managed to save the work piece. We had a honking big tap wrench like that. Perhaps we should have been using it. Certainly a strong memory.

I'm in the market for a 24 GreenField myself, I've got a 22 but I also have large tapping projects in the shop being in an ag area. By the way Adam it is your attitude of trying to help others learn and understand that brings most of your viewers back for more. Too many shops just tell people why they can't repair it themselves. Keep up the good work!

Usnm 158- United States Navy Maintence #158 according to the shop. So 158 is not a nsn number but a shop item number that the shop recognizes as theirs. I was a Marine Corps Armorer. I would repair weapons, I've seen very similar numbers on other things while I was in.

Would like to add a small but important trick -----after final assembly -----Melt a small amount of candle wax in to access grove to seal out trash

On the motor..Look underneath the bearing housings 180 degrees from the fittings on top there should be a plug.. This is a purge plug.. Take the plug out with the motor not running, pump grease in the fitting until you see the grease in your gun come out of the purge plug.. Run the motor for one minute with the plug out to expel excess grease then put the purge plug back in and tighten it.. Do not add grease without removing purge plug... If you don't use purge plugs, grease will eventually get into the windings and ruin the motor... Mike in Louisiana

Some large motors like on that shaper have relief grease caps opposite the grease fittings that must be removed before adding grease (bottom) ,This is to flush out the old grease and prevent blowing the bearing seals and sending grease into the motor windings . This also prevents over greasing the bearings .

You looked like the guy that caught the biggest fish, with those tap wrenches. Great Find, can't wait to see the tap(s) that go into those guy's. Thank's for the video. and thank you for taking the time to share with us.

When greasing that motor on your shaper, check for pipe plugs that may be on the underside of the end bells below the grease fittings. If they are there, they should be removed prior to greasing, so that excess grease does not get into the motor windings.

Love the way you work Abomb.......no mess, organized, and knowledgeable.

RU-vid is amazing. The fact that someone can help others by showing EXACTLY how to disassemble a hydraulic cylinder is incredible to me. Spreading knowledge is what the internet is all about.

I have done a fair number of hydraulic cylinders over the years but have never seen that type of retaining ring system. Thanks for the informative video, now I'll know what to do when I encounter one of these types of cylinders.

Adam after you load your grease cartridge you can push the plunger rod back into the grease gun to keep it out of your way it won’t hamper the workings of the grease gun , love your tap wrench’s .

thank you Adam....very helpful and encouraging for guys as you said trying to fix stuff on their machines....i will be attempting a leaking cylinder repair on my Komatsu PC50 digger and your video gives me some confidence it can be done

I've don't think there's a single person in the world who loves tap wrenches more than you.

30 years in fairly high level industrial maintenance and I learned some stuff. Basically, it's why I keep coming here. Thanks!

Push the plunger rod into the cylinder. (On the grease gun.) You don't need to leave it sticking it like that. The rod in meant to slip past the piston, and into the grease.

Unhook the plunger shaft from the endcap and push it up in the grease gun it has nothing to do with pushing the grease up it’s done automatically it’s just in the way now that the gun is loaded.

Once you retract the spring and load the grease tube and screw it back together, you can shove the rod back into the grease. You don't have to leave it sticking out ;-)

Looking awesome Adam! Not only do you inspire us with your skills and experience as a machinist but you also inspire us to regain better health and live a lot longer! We need so many more people like you Sir!! Thank you for all you do!

I truly enjoy your videos.....I never worked as a machinist, but I worked for over 13 years in the structural steel industry building everything from power plants and bridges to stainless stairwells for General Foods and even some NASA work. I started as a helper....made certified welder , then moved on to fitting and layout . You sir are a true craftsman and your work is impeccable.....I truly enjoy watching your work!

Sad face for not being able to give more than one like. As far as the tap wrenches are concerned, I am sure Adam will find one we will be able to see from orbit pretty soon.

That's one of my favorite grease guns that Lincoln makes. It appears to be a model 1142. Fun fact : that grease gun 33 strokes or pumps equals 1 oz. Typically I do bearing calculations to determine grease volume to each lubrication point. If you take your bearing size and measure the OD of the bearing and the id of the bearing x 0. 114 it will give you the amount of grease to apply in ounces for typical ball bearing. Anyway great video as always Adam

I don't know what's bigger, that No24 tap wrench or your smile standing between the 2 wrenches... Nice work Adam. It's real handy to to know how to re-do the seals on a cylinder like that. Cheers

Nice useful content here. I haven't rebuilt a cylinder on my tractor in a while and that's a great refresher course. Thanks.

If you didn't use the Dake Arbor Press to install that wiper, I would have screamed! Thank You for saving my families ear drums. ;-)

Hey Adam , you make a great teacher ,your explaining of what your doing is first class . Great show tonight all the best to ya .

rod gland locking wire.. put some silicone over the gap to keep out rain water and debris. yet it will come out easily when it comes time to rebuild the cylinder. wiping a little around the top of the gland to cylinder is also a good idea to keep moisture and debris out.

The #22 Greenfield was Navy property at one time, USN followed by M(aintenance)#### for inventory control.

I LOVE how neat and tidy the place is, and how neat and tidy and organised you are when you work. A tray, with everything spread out, no big piles of stuff to rummage through. Bliss.

Adam you have a million dollar smile with the tap wrenches. Good for you brother!

The *M* stands for machine repair shop. On a ship in the old days a single or double letter designation told which department the tool belonged to. An *A* would mean aircraft, *EL* electrician. USS Saratoga CV-60 1987-1995

You haven’t used the grease, but it’s the best . Thanks for reading the label because they never lie on the advertising

Adam, you might want to back off when greasing motor bearings. With electric motors, too much grease can be worse than too little. The grease gets past the bearing seals or shields and will eventually fill up windings and rotor gap. When this happens, the windage inside the motor increases and the current increases to a point the heat rise spec is surpassed and soon the motor burns up. If an industrial grade motor doesn't run 24/7 1-2 shots every 6-12 mos. is plenty, unless the motor is at 100% duty cycle every minute it is running.

Would be nice to see the cylinder being tested after a repair, I don't for 1 minute think there will be a problem but its nice to see a successful repair tested. Really like the content and as always it's great to see this kind of work shared with anyone who wants to watch and learn. Thanks

My number 1 internet show! This is way better than television!

On some bearings that have grease zerks there is a plug on the opposite side of the bearing housing. The plug is to be removed when greasing the bearing so that the bearing seal will not be blown out by the grease pressure. Sometimes too much grease is worse than not lubricating further. Replace the plug when finished greasing.

The tap wrench with USN is the United States Navy, the other letter and number is probably a U.S. Navy stock number. It looks like the wrench may be of WWII vintage, possibly in a ship fitter or pipe fitter shop.

I love my seal twister set couldnt get by without it

Abom: 'That's not a tap wrench. THIS is a tap wrench.'

Great video, that cylinder locking system has always perplexed me, you make it look easy; that what all good craftsmen do.

If I didn't see it here I would have never know that such a gland retaining method ever existed. I still can't even believe it. crazy. Thanks for sharing!

Hey adam... I'm in the electromechanical industry as a lead field tech working on motors from fractional horsepower to thousands of horsepower. Even with the several thousands of horsepower motors, if not oil bath or Babbitt bearing motors, mobile polyrex EM, or any equivalent EM grease is the recommended grease for motor bearings, and only 3-4 pumps of grease bi-annually per bearing, larger bearings of course require more grease, sometimes even flushing. A general purpose grease is most likely an EP grease and too thick, causing higher bearing temperatures and will shorten the life of the bearing. Especially if it's a motor that runs daily. Over and undergreasing bearings or with the wrong type of grease is one major cause for failure. Unfortunately a poly based grease such as the polyrex em, doesnt play well with general ep grease. Just a little food for thought. I'm sure one of the biggest complaints motor mannequins have is stators filled with grease, ot liquified grease all thru out the windings... I love watching all your videos as you repair about 90 percent of the stuff I play with daily. Probably the best, most thorough machinist I've seen, you're an artist.

The thorough explanations and demonstrations in your videos are really helpful

I would never have figured out how that retaining ring was meant to go in and out--Thanks for the education! Now, let me just go grab my 24-inch Crescent...

The Stamp on the Greenfield #22 tap wrench means it was once in a Navy Machine Shop, probably on a ship.

The #24 tap wrench would be great attached to the key of the ladies room at a rest stops!!!! 🤣😂

Nice, finally an "Abom-Size" Tap wrench can't wait to see them in action 😉

....Absolutely great...Thanks for your help with a clear video and dialogue, God bless folks like you...

Thank You Sir , i have a Bush hog brand lift cylinder leaking, this will be very helpful as i have never tried to repair one , still uncertain on which sides face in or out on some of orings , i do have my kit for it though, if theres a way to put something in backwards , i will sure as shooting with my luck . i appreciate You , best vid i have seen on this .

And I love PRG. I've had to do business with them a number of times and they've always been patient and helpful.

Thanks man. I would’ve never figured that cylinder out. Now I know.

Never knew about the clear grease guns, but it makes sense. Thanks for sharing.

United States Navy Machinery (serialized number for the ship)

The king of tap wrenches, good lord. I now have a new job at work, I changed to be in charge now of the total production maintenance and we have an excel spread sheet where all the relavant data is.

Thanks, now my siri has been reminded to grease your shaper motor.

Adam, back in the 1950's I was in the Navy, aboard shipand we had two (2) of those large tap wrenches marked USNM (United States Navy Military) or USNMaintenance? in the Engine Room.

I knew my seal needed replacing when the one I had would not balance a ball on its nose any more 🤣🤣

The info on rebuilding a cylinder was super helpful, thanks.

I am headed to rebuild 2 of those cylinders tomorrow. So happy you took the time to post this.

Hey Adam! Being a bit of a 'history curious person', I am looking into that USN M 158. Immediately I found that between 1860's up through the first half of twentieth century, the U.S. Navy had a class of vessel 'M' for Monitor. I have yet to find ship 'numbers' for any of these class vessels, but, IF this tap wrench dates back to the 1920's thru 1930's, it may be possible that is the ship I.D. that is on that wrench. Ken

Nice idea having a see through container on the grease gun now if someone could make a grease gun that doesn't weep grease on cement floors in hot weather!

Gotta love the big side of stuff. Working in the mining industry most of our stuff is big. Never hand tapped anything bigger than like M36

Great to be comment number 200, thanking you for the share. Lance & Patrick.

Get home from work for the weekend, sit down, open up youtube and watch a guy doing my job. (I do mechanical and electrical maintenance in a machine & welding shop). Btw it's great that you got a sponsor now!

Love that grease gun so much that I just ordered one. I didn't know McMaster Carr had one like that.

Just a tip. If you screw the tube in about a round into the grease gun then release the plunger before screwing it all the way in it helps expel the air. I do this even on guns that have a bleeder because it doesn’t end up making a huge mess like the bleeders do.

Abom is now a unit of measure.

Thanks Adam the seal tool makes installing so much easier.

Thank you for showing me how to load a grease gun. . . I have 3 from my Step dad, now they will be put to good use... Also thanks for showing me how to rebuild a Hydraulic Cylinder... You have a very unique ability to Teach... When will you and Mr. Pete, AKA Trubalcain 222 do a side by side collaboration ???

That handle on the grease gun should push all the way in even when its full...all I have ever used does

One of the valve shops I worked in we had those tap wrenches in use daily . RKL controls we built big really big valves of all types . Think I have a couple big npt taps out in my shop from there after sharpening them so many times they were to be discarded so I liberated a couple just to have . Enjoyed the rebuild I also have repaired several cylinders . Thanks

Regarding the WD40 grease.... Does anyone else notice that the nomenclature, "Specialist" and, "Multi-purpose", are contradictory? Evidently the WD40 people don't notice either.

Wow I never would have thought they made such enormous tap wrenches, Amazing. Thanks Adam

I've worked on a few of those type of cylinders...word was...the groove and 'wire' was cheaper than threading two parts...those car-carriers you see going down the road used a lot of these...bent a lot of cylinder rods..some came in with 90 degree bends in them...customer wanted to just straighten them....got pretty upset when we said it needed a new rod..which actually cost less than trying to straighten....

Im in the wrong job lol every hydraulic cylinder i get in is off a 1960s machine and is rusted up . Every one else gets the easy fixes lmao. Great video

Very helpful. I have a little Kubota tractor with front loader and back hoe, plus stabilizers. They are all leaking so I will start with one and see how I go. My problem might be obtaining the correct seals. Many thanks.

Us navy. M-158 m is for maintenance

You could have a tap wrench with an interesting story. It probably was assigned to DD-158, USS Leary, but was obviously "liberated" prior to her sinking in 1943 else it would be at the bottom of the Atlantic Great find!.

Abom, when you finally find yourself a forklift truck you'll be able to service all the hydraulic system throughout!

I really enjoyed this video; I found it super informative. I'm also beyond impressed with how useful that massive Reed vise is!!

Nice info about the retaining wire. That was new to me, thanks, I learned something. BTW: you're sponsors don't bother me. You're entitled to make a living too.

USN M158: I believe USN = US Navy; M158 = The tool number as checked out of the tool cage or bin.

Exactly what I needed to get my Bush Hog loader cylinders apart. Thank you.

Very cool Adam. That Cylinder tear down/rebuild really interesting stuff. That Diresta ice pick does have a million uses, that's one of those things you don't learn in school. Can't wait to see that tap wrench in action, please do put that in a video one day! :)

Recently been learning about hydraulic cylinders as an apprentice, seems lucky this video came out just now.

USN probably means "US Navy". The "M" may mean that this is a military ID # (not sure). Those things were used for threading the huge bolts used to hold heavy armor plates to battleship and cruiser underlying hull (side and deck) construction-steel plates. If you go onto one of the museum battleships and look at the armor decks where the main armor starts, you will see such huge bolt heads and/or nuts screwed onto them. Welding was used in some attachment to such armor (never on the cemented (carburized) hard face of face-hardened US Navy Class "A" side armor!), but it was not used for holding on the armor itself, since it could not penetrate deep enough through the joints to keep them from splitting open on impact by a heavy armor-piercing shell at a 1000 miles an hour or so; only rows of huge bolts with rubber washers to keep the nuts from being snapped off by shock worked, sometimes supported by grinding slots along the mating edges and ramming in long soft armor strips called "keys" to keep the two plates from moving apart. If I am right, what you have is quite extraordinary!!!

Nice work Adam. I worked for Dowty Seals for six years. Seen some munged up cylinders. You did a number on that, perfect job👍

I totally dislike that kind of end gland cylinder in heavy larger bore applications.. Especially the Cessna brand older stye like those.The end gland wallos out in the bore and the wire groove wears and they get to too loose to hold the gland tight and the o ring are always wallowed out. Love the tap wrenches!

US Navy Maintenance

Excellent explanation thanks for your knowledge. I always enjoy and appreciate your information and the presentation of said information.

The seal at 22:56 looks like a polypak. You are exactly right. It is a cup-type seal with an O-ring inserted to energize it.

LOL.. My phone heard you ABOM.. Now ill remember to grease my machines that I don't have 😂

Great video. I have my grandfathers Craftsman floor jack from 1975 (it's as old as I am). The cylinder has unfortunately just developed a leak. I would really like to restore the jack for sentimental reasons. Timely posting of this video!

That plunger on the end of your grease gun pushes in .

Thanks Adam. Took a lot of mystery out of tackling a seal change.

"A little bit of grease on the gland." My foolish heart be still. I like watching Adam grease up!!

Another great video. Like I said before, I am a new sub but your content is class A. You are professional and you speak and explain things that we all understand. And I am not even a machinist. Mechanic yes.

Interesting construction of the gland locking on the hydraulic cylinder Thumbs up Adam

Well, now I know how the rams on my little front end loader come apart, I need to change all the seals in all the rams and I never could figure out how to get them apart. Thanks for sharing Adam.