I was visiting my favorite hydraulic shop near Cleveland yesterday. They are primarily a heavy equipment (construction, cranes) repair shop, but they also service farmers and homeowners. The owner showed me a log splitter cylinder of a low hour box store brand. The gland retaining, snap ring grove had been machined too deep. The manufacturer spot welded around the grove to force the snap ring into position to be able to retain the gland, but didn't de-burr the welds and when the piston, rod and seals were installed, the seals were cut. Apparently, the splitter leaked from day one. The guy who brought the splitter in for repair had inherited it from his dad's estate and although the splitter was a few years old, it had only been used a few hours by his dad and the son had only split a few pieces recently due to the leaking. The shop said they wouldn't touch the cylinder, but they ordered a replacement for him. Here is a pic of scrapped 4.5" bore x 24" stroke cylinder: Of course it's speculation, but the shop owner said he figured more than a few with this issue are likely in use, but since they were probably deburred better, didn't develop the issue with leaking. His thoughts were that if it was just one, the company would have scrapped it, he thought this "fix" was for a run of those components. His concern is not knowing how deep the groove is cut and the gland end could fail under pressure. He didn't say exactly what brand it came off of, but said it is a major brand. Sad to see what is acceptable by some manufacturers.
Most box store splitters are YTL international splitters anyway. So it could cross multiple store outlets.
Dunno, maybe they've been called in as an expert witness in the past? He wouldn't say why, and I didn't press the issue.
not too many black cylinder big box stores splitters is there? I can think of one that was sold at a blue store.
