Rust Preventative Hydro Cylinders

[Neil Womack]

Need advise on a way to prevent rust on the exposed (highly polished) portion of a hydraulic cylinder.

When parking I retract the cylinder as much as possible. However, some bear metal is always exposed. I have been using various sprays at the 10 hour maintenance interval. All tried so far seem to work but attract dirt. I've used WD-40, hydraulic oil and Fluid Film.

Any advise?

 

[RB Shannon]

If your talking about the part of the shaft that doesn't go past the seal I would try Amsoil's Heavy Duty Metel Protector,I had to weld the cargo rack that broke on our ATV about six months ago which see's daily use hauling feed and getting cows in from the pasture.After cleaning off the slag I spayed some on the weld and I just started to see a slight amount of rust at a crease underneath where it might be flexing or I might have missed,I was pretty impressed by the stuff.

 

[ALS]

In my owners manual it says to use paste wax on the power antenna segments. It also says not to use oil because it attracts dirt. Can't see why it wouldn't work on a polished cylinder.

 

[Neil Womack]

Paste wax. Now there's an out of the box thought.

What about spray on graphite, Moly or Penatrol 90.

 

[Steve S]

I used to work on forklifts and some tractors retract the cylinder to protect the sealing area ,the hard chrome shouldn't rust. Using a protective spray as mentioned can't do anything but good, also spray the yolk .What I found on older equipment when overhauling the cylinders is rust from the condensation in the oil ,change the oil as recommended it is worth the expense if you keep the machine for a long time. Do the filters and the other fluids as well.

 

[BOBISTHEOILGUY]

Neil, since you do use schaeffers, they do have outside rust prevenitive http://www.schaefferoil.com/data/163.htm

 

[MolaKule]

If you can, wire brush it or polish it with 400 grit paper backed sandpaper and spray it with Penetro90.

 

[Cujet]

On similar aircraft parts, we use AV30 a hard coat type of product. It wicks into tiny areas when fresh and hardens into a waxy non sticky self healing product. It is much tougher than LPS 3 and much better that LPS procyon.

Chris

 

[CoosBayDave]

My suggestion would be check out Gibbs. Possibly Militec......

 

[Lance]

i'm familiar with AV 30- from Dinitrol. I wonder what the smallest quantity is one can buy? We get it in 5 gallon drums.