looking to buy a used hyd cylinder on ebay (or some similar source) for
use in a home-brewed tilt trailer. have a couple amateur hydraulic
questions:

if there's no label or tag on a given cylinder, how do you tell by
looking at the cylinder if it's SINGLE acting or DOUBLE acting? also

"all other things being equal", how does one tell what weight, say, a
given cylider can LIFT, straight up? for sake of discussion let's assume
load to be lifted has perfect "zero friction" bearings guiding it. I
assume the answer has a lot to do with size of the cylinder *piston*,
and amount of pressure pump puts out "to" the cylinder ? but what's
the formula?

also, can -ALL- hydraulic cylinders be operated 'in any orientation'?
eg: with cyl body horizontal, vertical, or at any angle anywhere between
the two?

for application in a tiltbed trailer, I assume a cylinder that's bigger
and with a LONGER stroke mounted, say, closer to the hitch, would be
-vastly- better than having a shorter cylinder with an even bigger bore
mounted closer to the axle (so it had a shorter stroke). that be
correct, then?

in same appplication, bubba here also guesses designing a tilt-trailer
to employ very nearly the FULL stroke of the cyl is better that making
it use, say, only half the stroke, correct?

and is there a way for a guy to some sort of 'intermediate throttle
body' or something so that a single-acting cylinder can be made to
perform 'double-acting functions'?

thanks for educating me, guys :-)

toolie

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