Busted cylinder, broken splitter, and an identity crisis - help!

A few minutes ago my better half came wandering in with a look on his face that was somewhere between disbelief and panic, and I realized that I've got a crisis here - turns out husband (a frequent poster here) has managed to blow the cylinder on his log splitter.

I don't know what that man will do with himself OR that huge pile of logs out behind the shop, but I am pretty sure that there won't be any living with him until he gets a fix on this. (Anybody got some spare room in case he turns out to be more than I can deal with??)

I did a quick search and turned up an IMS 37-ton splitter in the $1400 range. You know what they say, though, about sounding too good to be true - or too cheap to be good. It has a motor by yamahashimooshoo or something and a cylinder by Lord knows who.

Anybody have an positive experiences with one of these, or any ideas as to where else to go to look? I'd really like to have something positive to say to him right before I try to go scrape him off the floor.

Thank you!!!

Aintnotellin said:

A few minutes ago my better half came wandering in with a look on his face that was somewhere between disbelief and panic, and I realized that I've got a crisis here - turns out husband (a frequent poster here) has managed to blow the cylinder on his log splitter.

I don't know what that man will do with himself OR that huge pile of logs out behind the shop, but I am pretty sure that there won't be any living with him until he gets a fix on this. (Anybody got some pare room in case he turns out to be more than I can deal with??)

I did a quick search and turned up an IMS 37-ton splitter in the $1400 range. You know what they say, though, about sounding too good to be true - or too cheap to be good. It has a motor by yamahashimooshoo or something and a cylinder by Lord knows who.

Anybody have an positive experiences with one of these, or any ideas as to where else to go to look? I'd really like to have something positive to say to him right before I try to go scrape him off the floor.

Thank you!!!

Click to expand...

Well, before you guys start sorting through the used parts bin, let me tell you this thing is beyond repair. Its a Troy Bilt splitter, and while it has faithfully busted in excess of 300 cords, it is beyond repair. This cylinder does not have the full length beam under it,but has the dog ears mounted mid cylinder and the huge pecan proved too much for the design. it tore the dog ears right out of the cylinder, and is beyond repair or salvage. My only choice would find an I beam and replace the cylinder with a standard mount.Essentially rebuilding the entire thing using the original engine and pump. At this point, considering the hours on this thing, probably not a feasible thing to do.

Thanks to my better half for posting this, but its time to go ahead and throw myself in front of the bus.Never considered myself flat out of business with an obstacle like this one.

I obviously don't know anything of the nature of the "blown cylinder", but usually seals are the problem, and aren't really very expensive. If the piston is bent that is a total other situation.

Take the cylinder to a hydraulics shop, and find out what it will cost to fix it.

Sure will be a lot cheaper than buying a new splitter.

Good luck with it,

Bob

Edit,,,,,Scratch my suggestion then Avalancher, sorry to hear of your loss,,,,My Condolences!!

looks like this IMS splitter has been addressed before here...
http://www.arboristsite.com/firewood-heating-wood-burning-equipment/109324.htm

bobt said:

I obviously don't know anything of the nature of the "blown cylinder", but usually seals are the problem, and aren't really very expensive. If the piston is bent that is a total other situation.

Take the cylinder to a hydraulics shop, and find out what it will cost to fix it.

Sure will be a lot cheaper than buying a new splitter.

Good luck with it,

Bob

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Seals arent blown, its the cylinder walls that was torn by the mount, take a look at the pic. Even if you welded it up and could get it to hold, the inside of the cylinder wouldnt be smooth and the seals wouldnt last a day. Even the chassis that holds the cylinder are bent nine ways to sunday.

Ouchy. I dont know how much ya want to spend on it, but you probably could have the cylinder fixed. I had an excavator that got a good dent in the barrel. New cylinder was more than 2 grand IIRC, had a local place that builds cylinders put a new barrel on it. Used my old rod and piston and the rebuild and the new barrel was 750.00. That was high, but it sure beat buying a new one.

+1 on taking it to a cylinder shop. Those guys can do some pretty amazing stuff. Most cylinders are combinations of pretty standard parts, and if you get a good guy on it (and most of them are, if they're working in a shop) they can either fix it or make you a new one, often much more reasonably than you might expect.

If you're used to working with this one and like it, I'd sure invest a couple hours in a visit to the cylinder guys first.

Good luck whatever you do.

Oxford

Replacement cylinder

Give these guys a call. They have all kinds & sizes of cylinders, pumps, valves, etc. ,and at some pretty reasonable prices.
Bailey Hydraulic Cylinders Manufacturer

I think thats called a "Trunion Mount Cyl" if it tore the metal from the original tube I don't think it can be fixed. you may ponder some ways to mount a different type of cyl but it may be more cost effective to just replace that one with a new(er) one than buy a whole new splitter or majorly modify that one..

wood spliter woes

Aintnotellin said:

A few minutes ago my better half came wandering in with a look on his face that was somewhere between disbelief and panic, and I realized that I've got a crisis here - turns out husband (a frequent poster here) has managed to blow the cylinder on his log splitter.

I don't know what that man will do with himself OR that huge pile of logs out behind the shop, but I am pretty sure that there won't be any living with him until he gets a fix on this. (Anybody got some spare room in case he turns out to be more than I can deal with??)

I did a quick search and turned up an IMS 37-ton splitter in the $1400 range. You know what they say, though, about sounding too good to be true - or too cheap to be good. It has a motor by yamahashimooshoo or something and a cylinder by Lord knows who.

Anybody have an positive experiences with one of these, or any ideas as to where else to go to look? I'd really like to have something positive to say to him right before I try to go scrape him off the floor.

Thank you!!!

Click to expand...

You can order a cyclinder from Prince hydraulics quickly with a the addition of a stop tube.

You need to have a stop tube installed by prince to add strength
to the cylinder and avoid future problems like this.

I would strongly suggest that you order a cylinder from Prince Hydraulics and ask them to have a stop tube installed on the rod end to reduce any chance of damage to almost zero as the stop tube becomes a huge bearing surface in addition to the area of the cylinder piston which
creates a huge surface area which prevents the rod bending and damaging the stuffing box and packing gland of the hydraulic cylinder.

You may loose 2-3 inches of stroke but you will have a cylinder that will work and work and work and have no issues.





Looking at the picture you have provided I cannot get fix on what it is exactly that you are showing but there is no salvaging damaged cylinders in 99% of cases with which the lack of a stop tube on the rod end would have stopped the problem to begin with.


The problem has always been the cylinders are installed backwards on log splitters, and I will explain why.


The rod and rod eye are the weak link in smaller cylinders used in log splitters as they will try to escape the pusher block simply because the rod has the ability to bed slightly due to the design of your typical log splitter.

The rod eye being so small and the pin for the rod eye suffering the same fate and the forces created by the hydraulic fluid entering the barrel end of the cylinder to do work all add to up to what many owners of hydraulic cylinders that fail on log splitters which is bad design of the splitting mechanism.

If the log splitter was constructed with the barrel end connected to the pusher plate the less costly log splitters would never have these issues related to the bending moment of the rod and barrel.


I am so sorry for your trouble but a quick call to Prince hydraulics on Tuesday for a replacement cylinder with a stop tube installed will solve this issue for you.


PS: I love the night watchman with the Kalashnickov by the way, I was wondering if you have a loaner program for him

avalancher said:

Seals arent blown, its the cylinder walls that was torn by the mount, take a look at the pic. Even if you welded it up and could get it to hold, the inside of the cylinder wouldnt be smooth and the seals wouldnt last a day. Even the chassis that holds the cylinder are bent nine ways to sunday.

Click to expand...

Yes, By the time I saw your first post in this thread, I made mine, and I then edited my post.

I don't think you should try to fix that cylinder. You had some bad luck there no doubt.

Without seeing the whole setup, it would be hard to tell if anything from Northern Tools or another discount place would work. I am the kind of a guy who would rig something up to keep from having to buy a whole new splitter. After all you still have the frame, motor, hydraulic pump, tank, and hoses. If I had all the components that you do, I would think hard before scrapping them.

Bob

Ouch!
Sorry there. I recently bought a 4x24 for about $200

Holy crow I didnt think that a cylinder would let go like that:msp_ohmy: How did it happen, torque to one side or something? Pressure blew it?

If you are going to go with a hydraulic splitter I highly recommend a Swisher, I've got a Troy -Bilt and a Swisher with a 11 hp B&S with a 16 gpm pump, it is twice the splitter the TB is. Although I haven't had any issues with my TB and it has split a big part of 800 cords in the last two selling seasons (other than blowing up the original Honda motor warranty replaced) the Swisher is twice as fast, hell of alot better wedge design, just twice the splitter and about the same price as the TB, they are made right here in Missouri.
You owe it to yourself to look at one, they are a fantastic splitter for the money. I wish I had known about them when I bought the TB.

I like this place for all my cylinder needs.
Hydraulic Cylinders: Tie Rod, Welded + Pneumatic Hydraulic Cylinders | Hydraulics | Northern Tool + Equipment

In fact they are my first choice when it comes to any hydraulics I may need.

Hydraulics | Northern Tool + Equipment

Al

Sorry to hear about the splitter.

We forgot something here...

(Anybody got some spare room in case he turns out to be more than I can deal with??)

Is the room for him or for you?

Sent you a rep because if he is anything like me... Well you know what I mean... Hope things work out for you.

Yep Avalencher, cylinder is toast. You could get a hydraulic shop to make you a new tube with the trunion mounts but then you've got the same thing. If it was me, and it's not, I'd start looking for a piece of W beam and another cylinder and use my old engine, pump and valve. PM sent.

The woman feels sorry for you. I have found this to be the best time to do your sales pitch on why you need that fancy new super splt/timberwolf or whatever you want. Play it up.

brisawyer said:

The woman feels sorry for you. I have found this to be the best time to do your sales pitch on why you need that fancy new super splt/timberwolf or whatever you want. Play it up.

Click to expand...

Luckily for me, I have the greatest wife in the world. She spent a large portion of her holiday weekend looking online for parts to fix it, and we agreed that it was time to buy a new and bigger splitter. I am pretty stuck on the Northstar 37 ton splitter, so perhaps this whole thing will turn out okay. Repairs of the old splitter is possible, she found a replacement OEM cylinder for $400, but in the end I would be right back where I started. A splitter that was never designed to handle either the huge rounds I throw at it, or the volume that I go through.

Thanks for everyone that had some input on this thing.

I can't really tell on the picture just how the welds looked. There was a major thread here last year (IIANM) where the early models of the TB had a couple failures of the tube. Ram supplier fixed it by beefing it up. From the amount of use you have puit on it, it may be one of the early ones.

I, for sure, would check on the cost of a new cylinder from TB before buying a whole new splitter - provided I was satisfied so far with the one I had.

Sorta sideways on the trhead. Why TB did that type of a ram to get a trunion mount is beyond me. There are commercial trunion mount rams easily available with the trunion usually on the ram nose. The shortened armiture is a very sensible design - get the same stiffness with way less metal.

Were I designing a homebuilt that is the way I would go.

Harry K