Bobcat 743 skid steer hyd cylinder

So I have this guy who has me trying to help him with a hyd leak. One of the main lift cylinders where a fitting is welded into the body has a crack due to the fact the fitting hits the frame when lifted all the way up.

Bobcat wants $1192.60 for a new cylinder.

So is there any thing that can be done to fix this and or does any body know where to find that cylinder for a price that is reasonable??

Thanks

Biggest Bobcat dealer in MN, maybe the US, is Farm-Rite Equipment, Dassel, MN. 888-719-4857. Tim Cox...has hundreds of machines, new, used, salvage. Another salvage yard is G&D Equipment, Shippensburg, PA. 717-530-0170.

With the crack being at the fitting, chances are that part of the cylinder is beyond the travel of the piston. Should be able to disassemble the cylinder, weld it up. Be a good job for tig weld, precise and not a lot of heat.

Question is, why is the fitting hitting? Something assembled wrong? Modified? Can anything be done to stop it? Add stroke limiters?

The fitting is at the lowest end of the cylinder and as the lift goes up the cylinder pivots and then the fitting hits part of the frame of the machine.. It appear that it happen on both sides. As for why poor engineering maybe or maybe install wrong but since this is the first 743 I have messed with do not know

Could be an extremely worn bushing on the pivot pin.

Every Bobcat I have seen has the lift cylinders with the ports on the top. If they are hitting, it has to be worn bushings, or something assembled wrong.

That said, you can repair them without removing them from the machine. The easiest thing to do is put the bucket down, break both lines loose, and the lift the bucket all the way up with another machine, catching the oil coming out of the cylinder as you do so. You only need the lines loose on one side as they tee together in the back so both sides are tied together. Once you pick the bucket up, lower it down again to insure all of the oil is out of both ends of the cylinder.

With the cylinders now 'dry' you can clean the area with brake clean, etc, and grind the weld out just a touch. Then heat the area with a torch to draw/burn all of the oil out of the crack. Once it is clean and dry, reweld the joint, insuring the weld laps the ends of the crack onto good metal.

The main thing is to keep the cylinder positioned so the piston seal is as far from the weld area as possible.

While I haven't specifically done a Bobcat cylinder this way, I have repaired quite a few others with the same design this way over the years. Once in a while you'll find you left a pinhole, but with proper preparation and cleaning, the other 99.9999% of the time you get a permanent repair, with no leaks.

Good luck.

The way this one is made the cylinder would have to come off to get to the fittings and to remove the hoses so you would not melt them. As for being worn you can not move the cylinder ends any up or down. I guess if push comes to shove I'll pull the cylinder off and bring it home and clean it up and try to weld it for him. But for what Bobcat wants for one I'm not sure I would want to chance doing it in fear that I would make it worse