Hydraulic spring compressor (fixed)

[AVI_8]

I bought a Vevor (cheap Chinese crap) spring compressor a couple of years ago, never worked properly out of the box, thanks to you guys I was told how to bleed it, that worked to get enough compression in order to work, but left for a few minutes it would always loose compression, clearly I should have sent it back to the eBay drop shipper.

Forward to today Ive a couple of springs to remove, no compression, tried bleeding it at its lowest point, mid point etc, wasted 2 hours, took the springs to my mot centre, get them back on Monday, exactly the reason I bought the tool so I don’t have to spend money at a garage!

Phoned the only 2 Hydraulics places in Ayrshire, both of them, one was Pirtek, told me that’s a “specialist” job they’d have to send it away, well that’s not happening it would cost more than I paid for it.

Thinking it’s getting scrapped now and with the thoughts that there must be some kind of specialist seals in there I’ve nothing to loose by taking it apart for a look, just to educate myself, when I did and removed the piston I found that there was a nylon/plastic seal with nothing more than an O ring inside it, when I put my calipers on it I noticed that the seal diameter was actually a few hundredths of a mm narrower than the piston, surely that’s not right?

Then I remembered that a long time ago I bought an O ring kit from Lidl which I thought “may come in handy one day”, anyway found an O ring with the same outside diameter but slightly thicker, took some time to get the O ring fitted flush but built it back up and would you believe it now works perfectly, produces great pressure and holds it.

I can only presume that either disturbing everything and building it back up fixed it or an incorrect O ring was fitted from new bearing in mind it never worked when I bought it.

Picture of the piston, the plastic sleeve that the O ring sits in is on the left, the replacement one penny O ring in the middle, you can see that it’s slightly thicker than the original on the right.

I presume that any garage equipment with a hydraulic ram would be similar, not exactly a specialist job as described by a hydraulics specialist, if I’d known that before I could have removed my own springs ….

And the cheap Lidl seal kit

 

[MetalMonkey]

Reminds me of my engine crane saga - but yes these are all very simple rams, but they are "Chinese specials".
As such just not something hydraulic places are involved in, so its all special order and prohibitively expensive.
I assume because nobody is daft enough to spend hundreds refurbishing a £30 ram so they never get stocked.

A lot of the seals are slightly odd sizes as well, so it can be a bit of a trial. You also have to watch what material they are made from.
You can often buy an entire seal kit from China, via ebay or ali express. However, that can often work out a good chunk of the price of a new ram.
Its all very frustrating for something that could be fixed with a couple of trivial parts!

 

[AVI_8]

Reminds me of my engine crane saga - but yes these are all very simple rams, but they are "Chinese specials".
As such just not something hydraulic places are involved in, so its all special order and prohibitively expensive.
I assume because nobody is daft enough to spend hundreds refurbishing a £30 ram so they never get stocked.

A lot of the seals are slightly odd sizes as well, so it can be a bit of a trial. You also have to watch what material they are made from.
You can often buy an entire seal kit from China, via ebay or ali express. However, that can often work out a good chunk of the price of a new ram.
Its all very frustrating for something that could be fixed with a couple of trivial parts!

I have a feeling that the seal kit from China that you mentioned is exactly what’s being sold in Lidl. It’s over 400 seals for around £8, what’s not to like, they will come in handy one day !

 

[MetalMonkey]

I have a feeling that the seal kit from China that you mentioned is exactly what’s being sold in Lidl. It’s over 400 seals for around £8, what’s not to like, they will come in handy one day !

I think the kit you are thinking of is a generic O ring spares kit.

I'm thinking more of this sort of refurb kit, quite common for things like trolley jacks.
But for some reason the ones I tracked down for the engine crane were just not quite the right size and a lot more expensive, although all being very similar designs.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008046580819.html

 

[AVI_8]

I think the kit you are thinking of is a generic O ring spares kit.

I'm thinking more of this sort of refurb kit, quite common for things like trolley jacks.
But for some reason the ones I tracked down for the engine crane were just not quite the right size and a lot more expensive, although all being very similar designs.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008046580819.html

Oh yes the one from Lidl was definately a very generic O ring set, but it was over 400 parts over many different diameters and thicknesses, worked for me, if you need still need one for your engine crane let me know the size and I’ll happily send you a few to try from, might work might not but nothing to loose.