Office chair cylinder replacement (Bundle)

First of all. The piston itself is fantastic and sturdy. It is a little longer/taller than my old one so it makes my chair taller at the full extension. I don't mind this, I like my feet to dangle since I put my feet on a footstool. Do make sure to take off the small plastic cap at the top of the metal rod of the cylinder before installing or the mechanism to lift and lower will not work. That being said, the cons have nothing to do with the product itself. The hardest part of this whole process is getting your old cylinder out of your chair. At least, it was for me. After watching a couple videos of how to remove the old cylinder from the chair, I set down to take it apart. Mind you, I'm no small girl at 5'5" and 250+ lbs. Taking the star base of the chair and cylinder apart was easy. I just alternated pounding the bottom part of the cylinder and the star itself until I could pull it off. The casters came off during the process, making my cats scatter in pure terror. So...pro tip. Take off the casters. Next came the detachment of the cylinder from the bottom of the chair. I used the items they gave. The two collar type mechanism where one is supposed to be loose against the bottom of the chair and the second one is tight on the cylinder itself. In essence and theory, the tight collar is supposed to stay still while you thread the bolts through the threads and push the cylinder out of its snug little home. Sounds easy right? It should have been but the tight collar kept slipping for me. Threading the bolts only pushed the tight collar down the cylinder rather than pushing the cylinder out of the bottom of the chair. It was a rather ineffective way to pull the cylinder out for me. Frustrated and with the might of Thor running through me, I got a mallet and tried to lift the chair as I hammered the bottom of the chair. Much to my chagrin, the cylinder would not budge. Even after the application of penetrating oil. I even tried a regular wrench but only succeeded in scratching up the old cylinder. Fast forward two days later and I went to Lowe's and bought myself a 14" pipe wrench. Who doesn't need a pipe wrench in their tool box? I felt like a true, diy woman of distinction as I bought these heavy inches home. As I sat down and put the wrench to the old cylinder, I knew I was going to make it my new female dog. It was reluctant at first and I had to figure out the best position for leverage and I pushed and pulled with all my weight. After about a minute, the cylinder was out. As I belted my yell of victory and raised my hammer...er wrench above my head, I stood over my defeated enemy. My cats could finally live without the fear of loud pounding and they swarmed the enemy to further humiliate the old cylinder. Attaching the new one was easy, simply slipping into place so that I could finally claim my throne. So...tl;dr. Get yourself a pipe wrench, some penetrating oil and some brawn. The product itself is great but the tools provided may or may not work.

Clear instructions and perfect fit. Replacement took less than 10 minutes. The gloves are a plus - I didn't use them until I needed to set the chair upright and suddenly realized that I had grease on my hands. Pulled the gloves on and saved the fabric. Great kit!

I ordered this cylinder to replace the cylinder that came with my refurbished Steelcase Leap Chair v1 that I ordered in March 2020. TL;DR The cylinder needs modification in order to work with the Leap Chair v1. You may want to look at different cylinders if that is the chair you have. The cylinder fits in the chair perfectly and seems higher quality that what came with my refurbished chair. The installation kit was excellent, the hardest part was removing the old cylinder from the base. If you don't have a rubber mallet, go to Harbor Freight and get a cheap one. It makes removal much easier and quieter than using a board and hammer. With regards to the Steelcase Leap Chair v1 issue: the plastic button at the top of the cylinder that activates moving the chair up or down is too tall for the Leap v1, the button ends up always being activated. If you take a hacksaw to that plastic button and cut it off flush with the metal cylinder housing it will work. The portion I cut through was all plastic so I don't expect any issues. I did have to put the set screw under the seat almost all the way down after cutting the cylinder activation button. Prior to that I had almost removed the set screw to attempt to get the cylinder to work. When I initially got the cylinder I contacted support and they got back to me within 24 hours and once they had a good understanding of the issue they sent me a second cylinder to try. This cylinder had the same issue when it came to my chair because the issue is not a defect but rather an aspect of the design. I was offered a refund, but at this point I decided to try cutting the button down and seeing if it worked. It did, so I declined the refund. While I wish the process had been a bit faster and it had worked with my chair out of the box, I can't complain too much since my chair works at this point.

This devise was easy to install and most importantly the chair works perfectly.

TL;DR - If you're really short & your seat is already bottomed out with a stock cylinder to be at a comfortable height skip this product since it will make your lowest setting way to high. Also, be prepared to put in some labor to replace any cylinder even with removal tool included with this one it's a pain in the ___! Okay, now let's get into the review for the rest of you that are still with me. First, my name is Jerry (aka. Barnacules) and I'm a career Technology YouTube content creator (Sat) and Twitch live streamer (Mon-Wed-Fri) and you can find me everywhere under the channel/page name Barnacules Nerdgasm ™️ including all social media platforms just make sure it's a verified account since I do get impersonated a fair bit. I've been using a Noble Hero Black Edition gaming chair (275lb) rated for a little over a year now after replacing my old DX Racer King Series chair because it was finally falling to bits after 5 years of heavy use. I always thought it was odd that the Noble chair being built to a better quality than the DX Racer chair in most respects was rated for so much less weight (275lb instead of 330lb for DX Racer). It became obvious after a year of use with me weighing 390lb that the weak link on this Noble chair is the stock piston since it started leaking after about a year of use. It would hold air fine but if I shifted my weight to left or right it would deflate so you had to do a balancing act to keep it up but fully deflated it was super uncomfortable sitting way too low for me and I'm 5'10. Since the rest of the chair was still holding up well and showing zero signs of wear, I decided to fix the piston and move forward with it. I'm glad I made this decision because the pistons are literally only $15-$20 for a replacement and completely change the chair for the better. I noticed this gas cylinder was rated for 1000lb which is insane, and I thought it was just a gimmick but when it arrived it's clearly a lot bigger and a lot heavier than the stock one that came with the chair. The first thing I asked myself is why the heck would a $399 chair come with such a weak cylinder only allowing their chair to support 275lb under warranty when $15 parts (retail price) makes it capable of holding 1000lb since the rest of the chair is all heavy duty steal construction that won't break. The answer to this question became obvious after installing it and boy did it put up a fight trying to remove the broken one so be patient and use the included tools and some other techniques, I'll include at the end of this review to save you from pulling your hair out. The first thing you'll notice is that this piston isn't cushy at all, it's very stiff, it will basically prevent you from breaking your back when you bounce up and down on it but little more. The reason it's rated to 1000lb is because it's so much stiffer and it doesn't appear to be adjustable so to get the extra weight handling, they obviously installed a much heavier spring and seal. So if you like your chair to bounce up and down super cushy this isn't the piston for you. The higher the weight rating the stiffer it will be. Now most chairs you don't want to bounce up and down since it changes the leg height to the floor so it's only really good if you're getting up and sitting down a ton in which it can take some stress off your back but while sitting it does nothing to bounce up and down unless you have raging ADHD in which case, you'll find another way *lol*. You'll also notice that when you install this your chairs lowest position will go up by about 1-2 inches which doesn't sound like a ton, but it really is. Now my chair is almost bottomed out on the cylinder to get height perfect where old piston I had 50% of the way up to achieve same height. So like I said at the beginning of this review look else ware if you already run your chair at the lowest height settings. Now if you happen to be 5'10-7' then this piston has you covered for sure! At its highest setting the keyboard is level with my crotch 🤣 But, you'll also immediately notice the chair is MUCH MUCH MUCH more stable than with the stock cylinder at the high heights. I noticed with the stock cylinder the chair would rock side to side more and had more flex in it but with this $15 upgraded piston it's solid as a rock. Almost like it's just a giant round chunk of steel now holding the chair up. This makes it much better for people like me that are heavy (380lb) and like to lean weight from left to right and rest in all kinds of positions while live streaming and gaming to remain comfortable. I can tell you right now this is the single best upgrade you can make to any office chair because it will make it far sturdier, raise its effective height range and you won't be able to bottom out the piston even if you're on my 600lb life on TLC which is honestly where I'm heading with all the health problems that have hit me over the last few years unfortunately. But all joking aside this is well worth the $15 and the gloves that come with it are also very nice for gripping onto the bolts and making the greased parts easier to handle. ** IMPORTANT ** Now for some of the tips & tricks that you need to know when swapping out pistons/cylinders, so you don't go absolutely mad. First off if you're heavy like me the piston is going to be super wedged in there and wont just pull straight out. You're welcome to try at first to see if you got lucky but chances are it's basically rung together (cold weld) and you're not going to get it to budge. This is where the tool comes in handy that is included with this cylinder but not all of them so be sure you get this tool if you buy one that doesn't come with it. Now this tool works by connecting 2 rings to the shaft right under where it goes into the chair to pressure fit into the upper base (directly under the seat). You leave the top one loose and tighten the bottom one down as much as possible then tighten the lengthening screws on each side 1 turns each over and over until it breaks free and comes out. You may have to move it up 2-3 times and repeat until it releases depending on how far it went in. DO NOT HIT ANYTHING WITH A HAMMER ON THIS SIDE, SAVE THAT FOR THE BOTTOM. Okay, now hopefully you have the chair off the base and disconnected from the piston but now you have to remove the piston from the base which is the hardest part of this whole operation 99% of the time. You'll notice it won't want to come out with just hand force unless you're like 50lb and nobody fat ever sat in your chair. The worst by far is when it's an Aluminum base (star at the bottom with wheels in it) because they like to get super tight around the steel piston since they have different rates of thermal expansion going on. With a plastic base sometimes, you just hit it with a hammer, and it falls out right away, but I've seen other people have to heat it with a blow dryer to get the plastic to soften up to release it, just be careful and take your time and don't use crazy amounts of force. Focus on using heat and cooling to your advantage with the plastic bases so you don't destroy it. However, if you have the more common and heavy-duty Aluminum base (also works with steal just takes longer) you'll want to heat it up with a torch or heat gun and give it a good smack from the bottom with a hammer to see if it will pop out. Just keep gradually heating more and more until eventually it will give when the aluminum expands much faster than the steel breaking the suction. I recommend using a plastic hammer but since the old cylinder is shot anyways beating it to a pump with a metal hammer will do the trick even faster if you don't have a dead blow. But seriously, I can't emphasize enough, don't just whale on it with a hammer hoping it comes free. You'll end up cracking the base and then it won't work anymore. You really need to use heat to loosen it up and get it out. Also helps to put some penetrating oil on it once you heat it up like WD40 to cause it to heat and cool cycle and suck some of that lube down into the hole. Another trick is to put some WD40 into the hole or grease before putting the new piston in place so it will come out easier next time when you heat it up and the grease will burn off releasing some pressure. I hope this review helps you and saves you a ton of time because I just had to learn this all on my own doing it the hard way and it really wore me out, so I decided to take 30 minutes and write this review for you, so you don't have to struggle like I did wonder if you'll ever get the piston replaced once you have the chair apart. if you follow my instructions, you'll be done in 10 minutes and your back won't be destroyed 🤗 Good luck and hit me up on Twitter or Twitch chat if you find this useful, I always love hearing from the people who I can help save some time though sharing my experiences. It's kind of what I do for a living these days.

Poor quality kit and removal collars. My kit was missing one M6 hex head screw needed to hold one of the two collars together, so I had to order an assortment of hex head screws from Amazon to find a screw that fit. It would have been a little more helpful if the kit manufacturer listed the screw sizes on their instruction sheet. The cut threads for one of the longer hex head screws were not cut cleanly and I had to force the screw through the hole, stripping the threads on the screw off. The collars did not budge the shaft from the seat bracket, so I found it easier to remove the bracket and roller assembly from the bottom of the seat and disassemble the piston by removing the retaining clip. Once the piston was disassembled I put some 3 in 1 penetrating oil on the seat bracket, let it sit overnight then wacked the end of the piston shaft with a carpenter's hammer. The piston popped right out of the bracket with one hit. This was the second kit that I purchased from this supplier. I purchased the first kit used and when it arrived one of the collars were missing, there were no screws, and there was a loud rattling sound coming from inside the piston. I returned it to Amazon as is, but somebody should have examined this used kit before it was resold to make certain all the parts were there.

Excellent kit for my Herman Miller Aeron Classic. Removal tool is great for separating the top half of the cylinder from the seat base. The job is easiest if you separate this part first. Use penetrating oil if it’s especially stubborn. With the cylinder and star base away from the chair, use a hammer plus 2x4 to finish. It may be really stuck in there, but it will come out eventually. Be patient. Its a simple press fit, so once you separate the old cylinder from the chair, installation literally takes seconds. Make sure your upper rubber seal and lower plastic trim ring are in place before you put everything back together. Also, this can be a dirty job, so the gloves are very welcome to minimize the mess from the old grease, dirt, and grime. Be prepared to back out the height lever adjustment screw a few turns to work properly with the new cylinder. Differences from OEM: The bottom of the new cylinder, when installed, does not sit as close to the ground as OEM, but it does not adversely affect function. I would even say this is a welcome change because the retaining clip can be prone to snagging on certain types of carpet. Also, the new cylinder even seems to have a slightly higher maximum height than the original. In regards to some reviewers’ bottom trim rings not seating properly into the base with this cylinder, this was not the case with mine. It seats perfectly on my Aeron after installation. (This almost caused me to choose a different replacement kit, but I’m glad I chose this one anyway. Refer to my pictures to ease your concerns about this issue.) Time will tell if this cylinder can last as long as OEM, but I’m very happy with this kit so far.

Decent, but though the measurements exactly matched my Autonomous desk chair, this replacement sits a couple of inches higher than what I replaced. Luckily I can raise my desk to match, but it's something to be aware of.

The chair cylinder is perfect so far, it was easy to install (not that chair cylinder's are hard to install anyway). The chair cylinder removal tool at first didn't work the way that the instructions intended, however, using just one of the clamps and using the bottom of the chair for the screws to push off of worked perfectly and was the easiest I've ever removed a chair cylinder. For those buying, you do absolutely need to make sure that this chair cylinder's height matches your old or or at least is fairly close, otherwise you will find your chair is way too high compared to before. You can find the dimensions in the product info or the images.

After battling with it and finally getting it done it sags. 160lbs on a heavy day, all installed correctly, and I can literally feel it going down as I sit here. I had to bust the retainer clip on the bottom of my old piston to get it off so....now what do I do? Replace and get a refund on this waste of time and effort and leave my chair out of action or just suck it up?? Pfft not impressed.

Quality, Packing, Instructions and even the accessories were perfect and top quality. Recommended +++

I asked a question about this, and got some feedback that it might not fit my chair, as the taper at the bottom of the cylinder might not be pronounced enough. I saw that the seller offered free returns if the lift didn't fit, and that it fits 95% of chairs out there, so I thought that I had nothing to lose. I've given it Comfort 5*, as it's made such a difference to my chair. The old lift had a cracked bushing, so flopped backwards and forwards, and side to side, and made a hideous clank noise when you sat down or stood up. I gave it 5* value for Money, as it's half the price of the next closest lift, and comes with a fitting kit and gloves. I gave it 5* ease of assembly, as once you've got the lift off the old chair, it's literally a case of dropping it in to the base and then putting the chair seat on top and pushing down. I didn't even have to adjust the offset screw for the height adjuster lever. One thing I will say is that this is *slightly* wider than the standard Aeron lift taper. This has the advantage that the bottom of the lift isn't 3mm off the floor (which is something that always bothered me). It has the disadvantage (if you can call is that) of the height of the chair being ~3-4cm higher on the minimum than it used to be. For me, this isn't a problem at all, and I have a fairly low desk. As with other reviewers, I did have a bit of an issue getting the old lift out - this is nothing to do with this new lift, so I can hardly mark them down for it. I had the same problem that everyone else had, in that the top of the lift won't come out of the chair base. The locking ring slid down the lift slightly as the bolts were tightened. Unlike others, the ring didn't slide down too far - the bolts themselves deformed the top ring, making deep holes in it. In the end, I removed the clip from the bottom (to remove the base and lower shroud). A standard hammer had no effect at all, so I ended up using a sledgehammer. It popped out with a single blow. I removed the seat from the top of the lift using a plumbers wrench. I was unable to do it by hand, but again, a quick smack from a sledgehammer took it right off. At that point it was a case of wiping out the upper and lower holes, putting the new lift into place, taking the plastic cap off, and putting the seat on top. My getting on for 25 year old Aeron is now as good as new!

The removal collar works perfectly, and the new cylinder is very strong, adding another 5cm to the total heigh if my chair which is perfect.