Making a BIG Hydraulic Cylinder Rod & Eye | Part 2

This video is part 2 of a job we did to make a new BIG hydraulic rod and eye for a Hitachi EX1200-6 Excavator bucket cylinder. The rod has a lot of scratches and the eye is completely torn off the rod and has fatigue so we are making a whole new cylinder rod and eye. This shows the step by step process to make the new cylinder rod including machining and welding. We start with a 170mm diameter piece of MnVS6 induction hardened chrome bar and turn it into the hydraulic cylinder rod before fitting and welding on the new eye that we made in Part 1! First we rough machine down one end of the rod before welding silicon bronze on the cushion. Once it’s cooled we continue machining the rod in the lathe by turning down the silicon bronze and finish machining the end for the piston and nut. We cut a 3mm thread pitch external thread for the nut before flipping the rod to machine the other end. We machine a spigot to fit the rod eye and a taper for weld prep before fitting and tack welding the new rod eye in position. T