Home Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Tips and Tricks for 3 stage TKE Packing Change

Anyone have tips or tricks to minimize oil spillage or just any kind of helpful info for someone green to that specific repair?

Don't rush. Take your time. I had to hang the car in the overhead and come out through the escape hatch. Then do the whole thing off a ladder with my helper working the chain falls on the car top.

A guy in here, Montana, lined it out pretty good.

"If your jack heads are accessible with the car on the buffers:
1. Place diapers around the base of your jack
2. Mount a picking plate at the top of your rail
3. Hang chainfall off of the picking plate, center of jack
4. Run down, pull 1" bolt, manual lower to buffer out, LOTO, close MR oil line valve
5. Pull hat off of the jack, open bleeder to verify you're down
6. Use strap wrench to remove top head, set aside
7. Screw in 1" eye bolt and hoist small piston out, lower down and set on pit floor
8. Screw top head back onto large piston
9. Use strap wrench to remove bottom head
10. Choke large piston under the top head and begin hoisting
11. Use a small oil pump to pump the oil into a bucket as you hoist the large piston out.
12. Remove four 1/2" bolts from the bottom retaining plate
13. Pull the check valve hard to get it out and remove the old o-ring from the inside groove.
14. Replace the internal seal
15. Install the new check valve o-ring into the groove and shove the new check valve into it
16. Reinstall plate and bolts
17. Lower large piston back into jack casing
18. Remove top head and set aside
19. Remove bottom head and replace o-ring, wear strip, and seal (use tool that covers threads)
20. Slide bottom head back on (use cone tool that goes onto the top of the piston) and screw back on.
21. Lower small into large piston
22. Rebuild top head just like the bottom head and install
23. Put everything back together and bleed air

I'm sure I've missed a bunch of steps because of my ADHD, LOL, but you get the just of it. The last car I did I had to poke the car and work under it because the jacks were real short and the heads could not be accessed with the car on the buffers. I did not like that repair. As I get older I don't like being under poked cars. There are definitely a few ways to do it. Hopefully some other mechanics will give some more good tips. I hope this helps you a little bit. Just take it slow and think through it. You'll probably make a couple mistakes but that's ok, you'll learn how to do it."

I have an eye bolt that fits in the top of the first section that I used to lift. I also didn't need to pump any oil out cuz I evacuated the entire oil line before starting and was able to get the oil to drain out of each section as I lifted it up. I don't really remember how but no mess till it was time to bleed them.

get the seal installation kit from TK, expensive but worth it. have seen many leak afterwards because seals were not protected when pushed past internal threads

Absolutely not, Gorman is the best option.

I am not talking about the seals

https://verticalxpress.com/tool-kit-three-stage-telescopic-jack-1150al.html

Sorry my bad, yes definitely need the kit so you don't wreck a packing during install. But I've had bad luck with TK packings and we switched to Gorman for all telescoping and conventional.

Something that maybe helpful for these packings is if they're leaking and you can't find find a nick or blemish that's causing it the. Piston can be to smooth and and causing oil to sneak past. I just found this in a conventional jack and talking with a guy at Gorman was told this is common on in telescopic jack. So check that if you don't see any knicks or blemishes before changing the packing.

yes I like Gorman too. have had issues with Texacone on the TK stuff too but it may have been installation error by previous repair crew.

rooster, yes have also been told to sand the whole piston if they are "shiney". I wonder if some scotchbrite pads and hose clamps and let the unit run for a day or 2 to break the glaze on the piston would be enough.

I was using a piston sander with 110 grit and that paper was gumming up every 8-10'. It was a 7ish inch piston. But you could tell where the sanding started to to get light it started leaking again but where the fresh paper was used it was good. So not sure if the scotch bright would hold up.