as you may guess, the above is the gland seal out of the Cranab ram .... little bitch it was too .
step one .... evacuate said ram of liquid gold (also known as Plantohyd

) in a controlled manner

.... saves a lot of cleaning up of 2 litres of oil
step 2 find out WTF is lurking behind the cover plate
I had actually sussed it by this point and had installed the SHCSs to deal with it ... had spaced said cover out to get a hold of it with the 4 ft stillis to rotate the end cap lurking in the cylinder to free it off ... so's I could tap it back in
to reveal this gert spring clip
which took some extracting
tapped it in first to get an end out the groove, to get under it to get behind it with this
can't recall what I made it for maaaany years agom to pull summat out of somewhere,

but it's done a few little jobs over the years ... and worked very well on this one too

that was some spring clip - 6mm and serious
some compressed air into the extend port and this popped out, sweet as, after id give the neck of the cylinder a good wipe clean first, of course
grub screw located and removed and it came apart sweet ...
somebody else'd been in there at some time .. ****ing butchers

all it needed was a decent sized adjustable (see previous pic) and came off - "simples" ... allowing access to the gland/end cap
which simply slid off

the acetal bearings were a POP ....... the seal on the other hand took some persuading out of where it lived
piston pack looks fine ... all off and cleaned ...
as does the dirt scraper seal out of the end cap
not a dint or mark on it
and i'm out o' pix again