Home Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Replacing packing on telescoping ALGI ram

Anyone have any experience with one of these? There is the large head screwed onto the jack casing which seals the larger piston, then another smaller head screwed onto the larger piston that seals the smaller piston. It appears the heads are one piece and have to be removed to replace the packing. With both pistons fully retracted, there is no way to hold the larger piston to unscrew the smaller head. I'm afraid this jack is going to have to come out and go to a shop to replace the packings.

I "borrowed" this picture from Texacone

Hi , done this several times on some 3 stage Algi jacks I have on my route. Its not as bad as you think . Some times if you de pressurize the jacks all the way you don't need to hold the one underneath to unscrew the head above if you have the ones with the square sides for the jack followers like in the picture you can shock them with a lump hammer to get them started . There is a set screw on each head ..make sure you remove it before trying to unscrew them ! The times we have had problems with the jack ' spinning ' we made up some wooden braces for each piston with some all thread . I have a write up from Algi somewhere . Pm me your email address and I will send it to you . Be aware if you have problems with them going out of synch then you need to change the internal seals and check valves...and that's a whole different ball game !

Awesome! Thank you!!
I pm'd you my email.
I dropped the jack all the way down and removed the set screw. Then I tried to unscrew the head and the piston just spun. I forgot about the blocks and all thread trick, thanks for the reminder!!
This elevator only has the one jack, so I don't have to worry about syncing it.

No problem , I will send you what I have now . We made the clamps so that they braced against the spring buffer stands . As well as removing the locking set screw , back off the bleed screw a couple of turns . If the bottom head doesn't have the flat pieces ( mine don't ) then you may need to get a decent ratchet strap on it to get it started .
Good luck .