I thought I’d give some follow up on my post #1093. Man, it’s hard to find the time or motivation for find a minor leak on your non-primary jack, but I finally did. This is a jack that I swore had a reservoir leak from the main tank nut to reservoir body.
FWIW, it is a 10 year old-ish orange Hf model 34271, 3 ton.
Taking it out of the frame was straightforward. The first surprise was after I got the hydraulic cylinder into the vise. The main Tank nut was loose. Like, it’s coming off easy with a pair of 12” channellocks loose. Im surprised it held in any fluid from the reservoir.
In any case, 2 differences of this Jack from Hiball’s instructions... First, there was a gasket of some sort between the tank and the base of the hydraulic unit. I wish I could tell you what kind of shape it was, but it was beaten into a few pieces. I’m not sure how this held in any oil either. Secondly, there was also a gasket between the top of the reservoir cylinder and the tank nut. I pulled the main ram, and it’s the o ring with retainer type. It looked to be in fine shape.
I put a 4.5mm CS x 68mm ID o ring into the base / reservoir junction and a 3mm CS x 66 mm ID o ring into The groove that seals the main tank nut to top of reservoir junction (now my measurement for this off of the metal parts were 3mm x 66mm. When I compared it to the original o ring, the new one had a thinner CS, but during test fit, it seemed just right. Nevertheless, I added a thin layer of RTV).
Putting the hydraulic unit back into the frame was a pain. If it doesn’t sit just “perfectly“, the spider gears for the release valve bind. In addition, I had to chase loose ball bearings from the wheels around the Garage.
Anyway, it’s been a week since it’s been put back together with 2 uses of the jack. No leaks anymore. I know Hiball always says to do a whole rebuild. But I just changed out the parts that were suspect. I will assume Hiball was right, and I’ll be redoing this again in the future when the main ram leaks or the pump piston leaks.
the biggest pain was trying to Measure and source the o rings. Something like $2 parts, $8 shipping.