Hydraulic Ram Servicing – What to Look Out For

If you are looking for hydraulic ram servicing then here are the things you need to look out for.

There are really only three things that can go wrong for you. Before I tell you what they are, it would help you to remember this.

I have been servicing  hydraulic rams for over 25 years. I have owned my own hydraulic ram repair company for over 20 years. Don’t ask me about anything else, but on the subject of hydraulic ram servicing ,  I do know what I am talking about.

Hydraulic Ram Servicing

First of all, consider what YOU want?

If you are like most  people who are wanting a hydraulic ram serviced, you will want three things. You will want Quality, Speed and a Decent Price.

Quality

You will probably already know that ANYTHING to do with hydraulics seems to be expensive. Seals, valves, motors, pumps, etc, you name it and it is expensive.

If it were possible to make hydraulic stuff cheaply, someone would have done it by now, they would have cleaned up and would be the obvious market leader. But there are none, because they all have to work to a very high and very expensive standard. If they don’t, the hydraulic components will fail.

So when you are considering a hydraulic ram servicing company, there is no point having a poor quality job done, as you will very quickly have to take the ram off the machine again.

This will cost you a lot in terms of money, downtime and heartache. If a hydraulic servicing company tells you they will do a ‘cheaper job’ for you to ‘save you money’, they are doing you a disservice.

Plus, when the ram fails, and it probably will, you will have no guarantee to fall back on. It will be at this point that the ‘cheap’ hydraulic repair company reminds you that you opted for the ‘cheaper repair’. So unfortunately, there is no such thing as a high quality, cheap hydraulic ram repair.

Hydraulic Ram Servicing – Speed of Service

Assuming you want a high quality ram repair, now, you don’t want to spend a fortune, so do you just go for the cheapest price? After all, everything else being equal, that would make sense.

The problem is, when it comes to hydraulic ram servicing, everything else is NOT equal.

Downtime costs money. When your machine is not working – it is costing you money. So you need a fast hydraulic ram repair, but all hydraulic ram companies will tell you that they can do you a quick job. So how do you decide who to use?

There Are Three Things That Can Slow Your Hydraulic Ram Servicing Job Down.

A lot of people think the seals may be the problem, but they are not. It should be possible for any hydraulic ram servicing company to get any seal within 24 hours.  The three things which really slow a ram repair down are:

Hydraulic Ram Chrome Rods

If your ram needs a chrome rod, then the company you choose must have that diameter in stock, otherwise you will be kept waiting for up to week for the rod to arrive, before they even work on your ram. That is not recommended.

If your chrome rod is a tube, then it may need grinding and chroming. Sadly, this normally takes a week or so. As hard chromium plating is such a specialist area of work, and is so toxic, very few companies do their own chroming.

Hydraulic Ram Cylinder Tubes

Tubes vary so much in internal and external diameters, for varying wall thickness, that most ram repair companies only stock a limited supply of tubes. Most hydraulic ram companies usually stock the common sizes only. They should be able to get you the tube in a day or two, but they may keep you waiting for two weeks.

Attitude

This is the biggest influence on the time it takes to service your hydraulic ram. When considering a hydraulic service company, ask yourself…

What is the attitude of the company?
Do they understand the position you are in?
Are they willing to work with you?
Can you believe what they say?
How long is their guarantee and what does it cover?
Have they got the chrome diameter on stock?
Have they got the machining facilities?
Will they test your ram properly?
Will they provide a test certificate?
Will they collect?
Will they deliver?
And other questions that are important to you.

You could check their testimonials, but to be honest, most hydraulic companies haven’t even got any. It is as if they feel they have nothing to prove to you.

There are few things worse than being held by the balls by a poor service provider. I hope this short article on hydraulic ram servicing helped you.

 

For the record, we have every diameter of chrome in stock, both Imperial up to 4” and Metric up to 100 mm. We can get any other diameter by tomorrow morning. If we need to, we send our own driver to the national chrome rod stockists and picking it up ourselves.

 

We collect immediately from anywhere within a 100 mile radius. If you are farther away, maybe we could meet you half way?

We have full machine shop facilities. We can make anything.

We will test your hydraulic ram and provide you with a test certificate.

We were the first company in the UK to give a Full Twelve Month Guarantee with every hydraulic ram repair, we began offering our guarantee in 1990.

 

In fact, I think we are the only one that does. We can do this because we are hydraulic ram repair specialists and we do not do anything else. If we can’t repair hydraulic rams properly then we would very quickly go out of business.

 

So, if you are looking for a hydraulic ram servicing please give us a call and check out our attitude. We are here to get your hydraulic ram repair back to you as fast as is humanly possible.