Was planning to put the cylinder back together tomorrow, but I don't do that well in the patience department and thought I could at least start today. The gland and piston were cleaned up well the days before. After work I washed the tube well on the inside with dishwashing detergent and a mop. Didn't want to risk any of the sand paper stuff to be in there. Dried it up with paper towels, blew some air in, and sprayed it with WD40. Didn't get to rust as I went right on to the next step.
Pinned the rod on the backhoe and set it on some wood in a position to have good leverage and minimize the chance of injury both to the rod and to myself
see
do right? Knew the six feet long and one inch thick wrecker bar had to be used, just like the guy in the manual. Indeed, I weighed myself at 167.55 lbs, times 6 feet, would mean 1005.3 ft-lbs of torque. The bolt was greased as per the manual, and I have to say that it tightened nicely, until the bar was bending way too much, then I said done.
Happy with myself that it tightened up so nicely, went to get the gland. Ahm... wait a minute. That was one of those "oh no!" moments. The gland goes on the rod before the piston! That happens when you rush, right? Maybe to others it doesn't, but it did to me. Figured the bolt was freshly tightened so it wouldn't be too bad to undo.
Wrong! Back to the 6 feet bar and it wouldn't budge. In fact the end of the bar snapped and I got quite a good whack on my left palm. Frustrated somewhat, went and got the propane torch out, heated up the rod end, and then the bolt came undone just fine.
The rest wasn't so bad. Again, some pieces of 2x8 helped to hold the rod in place so I could muscle the tube on the piston carefully not to damage the seals. Maybe I was a little too paranoid about it and used a piston inserting sleeve to hold the seals tight until the tube went over them.
Pin went in on the other side as well. The gland was surprisingly easy to screw in, almost all the way with just the 18 inch breaker bar. The very end got the 30" wrecker bar treatment and it got tightened in place decently but not too tight.
Washers and then the snap rings went on then the hoses and was ready to test. Ran the tractor for a while, moved the boom up and down a few times, no leaks. Not sure that the hydraulic oil made it to the empty cylinder yet, so I can't say I'm a 100% sure it's fine, time will tell.
No tree hugger should ever tell me I run a diesel backhoe and so I don't care for the environment. Look at the effort I put in stopping one little oil leak.