Have you ever disassembled a piston pump and found that the cylinder block smeared a 1/8" groove into the valve plate? If you are a seasoned hydraulic repair facility, and have purchased remanufactured products before, this is common if the supplier you purchased it from simply Lapps the plate and sells it as is. This scenario is created by grinding and lapping beyond the heat treated surface. It is common place to recondition a plate by the above mentioned procedures but it must be re-hardened before it can be used again.

The process of Flame hardening is used to harden miscellaneous hydraulic components including Wafer Plates, certain types of Cylinder Barrels and most importantly Piston Pump Valve Plates. Flame hardening exceeds temperatures of around 1500 degrees. Up to HRC 65 hardness can be achieved. We have found that new and reconditioned plates should have a hardness depth of 3/16 inch. Water quenching is applied as soon as the transformation temperature is reached. Properly reconditioned hydraulics is what we are known for and it requires the machinery and knowledge to bring back a unit to the highest quality levels that have been set from the original manufacturers'.