A buddy of mine works for the Big O and he said they had a job that they were getting regular jacks made but haven't heard anything else about it. Not sure how you would attach it to the car sling

IVO Jacks suck. That's why they've gone out of style.

They're still putting those in though ain't they?

The only company I know that still uses them is gmv-na. This is because they are prone to leaks.

Schindler 321A used them, but that model is no longer in production.

We convert them to In-ground cylinders all the time. Not a big deal. Everything removes from the car and rails pretty well. We add a couple of braces above where platten plate (cylinder attachment plate) is , like they already have above the strike plates for the buffer springs. We cut the floor plate as wide as the block out that is needed to be cut for the well driller. Depending on jack sizes, we have to change out the pump occasionally to keep the speeds in line with original specs. Not cheap though with the demo, concrete saw cutting, inside drill rig for the new hole, getting ride of spoil, the cylinder, the pump and labor we are always well over $100K.

Is it worth even changing? How long does a packing typically last on a 330a invert?

100k seems steep vs a repack every so often

Some of them start leaking the day after you repack them and some go for years. We took over a job the Schindler had. Schindler brought in everyone and their brother and they couldn't get one side to stop leaking. They would just repack it every year

Gotcha, I’d guess you’d have to weigh the cost of repacks vs an upgraded jack that would be billable to the customer vs eating the labor on repacks

100K+ is allot of money, but we charge $10K for changing the packings, and they normally need to be done every ear or so, some they don't last but a few months. We actually pull the jcks out of the shaft each time and extend them to go over them looking for burrs/dings, scratches what have you and touch them up with our texacone kit. I also had our shop order up some custom gauges, and you would be amazed how many of these pistons are out of round. But it's not necessarily the cost of packings, its potential fines for oil discharge into the environment. The they leak, they fling oil all over the shaft, so there is no way to capture it other than it going into the sump crock or drain. Personally, I throw the hook and lockout a car whenever it runs low on oil due to seal leaks, I won't add any, till they are repacked.

I will also LOTO on blown out packing, while I do agree it is a silly design- they make us a ton of money. It’s smart to go over the jack and dress it up while changing a packing but I’ve never taken one out but I do love the feedback and never crossed my mind to upgrade bc of the cost alone.

Had a casino with a duplex. high use and ran hot. they ran tractor oil. had oil coolers, but they were in the machine room, even though there was a huge, semi-out door parking garage on the other side of the wall. NEVER understood why guys install the coolers in the machine room. i remember going there multiple times on call and you couldnt even lean against the tanks or controllers they were so hot..repacked often, board replacement often, motor and/or valve once a year. casino wouldn't pay to have spares. not uncommon to have the pit full of oil. nightmare. Kone eventually took it over and did a tear out and put ecos in. retained the the hall doors and Schindler locks/pickup roller setup. if you could do an inground without the pvc liner i'd say go for on high use units. aside from that the only real solution is traction. maybe one of those oil-to-water coolers, i hear they work good for trouble hydros.