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August 19, 2026 7:33 am
If you want a masterclass in testing your patience, your vocabulary, and your lower back, try re-packing and replacing rusted-out hydraulic cylinder lines on a machine built back when Kennedy was in office.
Last weekend, I tackled the main lift and loader bucket cylinders on my '62 Ford 4000. Between sixty years of baked-on dirt, heavy fluid that smells ...bad, and pins that essentially became one with the housing, it was a battle.
The hardest part wasn't even fighting the stubborn gland nuts (though a massive pipe wrench and a 4-foot cheater bar definitely got a workout)—it was trying to hoist the heavy cast-iron cylinders back into place without a gantry crane while working solo in the gravel.
Everything is back together, torqued down, and remarkably holding pressure with zero leaks so far. But my shoulders are definitely going to feel this one for a week. Oh, this does not even include the headache for securing parts.