Shoehorning big packings into cylinder

I should be doing a job like that soon myself...what would you think of trying the type of ratchet style collar for installing pistons into engine blocks? Once you succeed by whatever method please post it here...how you did it.

These tubes have a deep bore for the threaded cap, probably 4" deep , that makes it difficult to use a clamp around the packing. I'm having to do these about horizontally, with the rods supported by straps, line it up and then try to push the ram in by hand. I may have damaged this packing before because in had to push, pry, wobble and hammer the rods in. I doubt they do it this way in a shop, and I think there's probably some tricks I'm missing. If I were working on a 10" ram there would be no way a man could reassemble it without some sort of jig or press.

Interesting. I used some aftermarket pickings when I did mine 3 years ago, as for some reason, the Agco parts were not available. I'm interested in your comment about the v pack being compressed too far; I thought that the piston halves squeezed the packing to the proper thickness. Are you saying that one must judge if the fit is too tight and "adjust",shim, etc the packings to get a reasonable fit? I am going with Agco-Allis packings this time around and maybe they'll be a better fit. Thanks

Edited by doctorcorey - 08 Jul 2015 at 9:46pm

Eric, I used a big drift pin to crack them loose,then a big pipe wrench to hook the tangs like a spanner. They were quite easy.

The vee packing set is aftermarket, assembled by a local industrial supply company.  We didn't have much to go by on the type of packing rings, since most of them were gone.  Remnants of 1 poly or urethane ring and 2 slivers of conventional rings.  According to their book they couldn't get the exact compressed height with our pack using 2 urethane rings, so we went a little taller, thinking the conventional rings would compress.  That was wrong and destroyed the set of rings.  On the second set we went a little under, left 1 conventional ring out, I think it was 0.050 inch under the installed height and it went in.  It still took the hydraulic jack to push the ram in.

Chock2 wrote: The vee packing set is aftermarket, assembled by a local industrial supply company.  We didn't have much to go by on the type of packing rings, since most of them were gone.  Remnants of 1 poly or urethane ring and 2 slivers of conventional rings.  According to their book they couldn't get the exact compressed height with our pack using 2 urethane rings, so we went a little taller, thinking the conventional rings would compress.  That was wrong and destroyed the set of rings.  On the second set we went a little under, left 1 conventional ring out, I think it was 0.050 inch under the installed height and it went in.  It still took the hydraulic jack to push the ram in.

        Thanks for these details. When I changed my packings before, I naively assumed that the parts were drop-in. I had to pound the rods with a chunk of oak, then when they were far enough in, screw on the caps and use the machine's hydraulics to pull them the rest of the way. They lasted for quite a while but burnt up eventually. I've got agco parts this time, and a lot more experience in knowing when trouble is brewing. As soon as I get my pole barn erected, I'm going to tackle there Rams and water pump. Thanks again all.

Thanks everybody...some good learning curves in this thread!