The other day, after hours of heavy labor to get the front-end-loader (FEL) installed on my Ford, I fired it up and was very dissapointed to find that the bucket would not even move. Tonight, after discovering the material I intended to weld up for a goat shelter was actually aluminum (instead of steel, which I am equipped to weld) I gave up in exasperation and resorted to tinkering with the tractor and the FEL. I had determined that the hydraulic cylinders were going to need to be rebuilt, so after what seemed like several hours removing the big ol' pins that hold the cylinder on the tractor, I got the cylinders removed. I don't know what I was expecting, but those things are HEAVY.
After we got the hydraulic fluid drained (mostly) we mounted the cylinders in the bench vise and proceeded to wish we had a very large monkey wrench to unscrew the sleeve on the end of the cylinder. Well, we don't have one, and even if we did, it is doubtful that it would be of sufficient magnitude for a job like this. We considered calling our bishop (who had previously offered his assistance in any matters of the tool nature) but decided against it after noting the hour (approximately 11:00pm. What to do?
Improvise! Take a look at this carefully constructed "wrench" consisting of a piece of strap (scavenged from a consturction site where it had previsouly held trusses or something to a pallet) and a large pry bar. This is an old trick I learned while working on a construction site where we were constantly popping the tires on a huge all-terrain forklift and we had to use a length of 2X4 lumber to provide enought leverage to remove the lugnuts to take the wheels in to the tire shop for repair. Multiple wraps around the cylinder create enough friction that the strap doesn't slip, and a similar program around the pry bar affixes it with sufficient strength that it can be used to lever the thing off. Here's the result:
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