Quick and strong Pin spanner

[Frank S]

I have a hyd cylinder on my brick crane that needs rebuilding the only thing is the gland was not made with spanner holes so there was no good way to remove it. I drilled 3 1/2" holes 3/4" deep then notched and drilled 2 1/2inch holes in a piece of 1/2 x 3 flat bar

[DIYer]

Thanks Frank S! We've added your Pin Spanner to our Fastening category,
as well as to your builder page: Frank S's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Pin Spanner by Frank S

tags: hand tools, disassembly

[metric_taper]

How did they manufacture that without any method of driving that keeper in place? I see a few pipe wrench bites in that gland housing, nothing that I would expect to see to rotate that.
I would like to see how you prepare the bore of the cylinder.
I repaired the two on my skid steer 30 years ago. I made an extension shaft from some 5/8" round bar, that I drilled a hole into the end, with cross holes for set screws that could clamp the end of a cylinder hone (for engine cylinders). And used an electric drill to drive that long shaft. I had a 5 gallon pail of cutting oil with a pump to flush the cylinder as I honed. Worked real well. Don't know if this would be the way it's done, so would be interesting to see how you do it.

[metric_taper]

I know you skipped a few steps, I assume you used some drill bushing guide to precision place those three holes.

[Frank S]

I know you skipped a few steps, I assume you used some drill bushing guide to precision place those three holes.

If you really want to know the truth I grabbed the piece of 1/2 x 3 flat bar tossed it in the vice on my drill press drilled 1 hole then moved it to OH this looks about right and drilled that hole then torched the notch thinking I would just put 2 holes in the gland but once I saw how close the holes would have been to the wiper I decided to move out a ways and drill the holes the 3rd hole came as an after thought but fools luck it matched close enough to put the pins in from any hole
I could go on about how I measured marked and calculated the placements for days but all of it would be false.
I did use the flat bar to drill the 2nd hole though by inserting 1 pin then hold the bar where it looked right the 3rd hole came out as almost pure dumb luck. the crane beam is on horses at the west end of my shop and by the time I was drilling the holes it was well into the afternoon around 100° and in the sun. At that point I wouldn't have cared if I had to make swiss cheese out of the gland