Chair Cylinder Removal Tool

I have a 27 year old office chair that I have kept in great shape. I just got a replacement for the pneumatic cartridge from the manufacturer (in retrospect could have bought from Office Oasis)

I had been struggling to remove the old cartridge for over a week. I tried 4 lb sledge hammers, vice grips, drenching in penetrating oil for 48 hours, then a 18" pipe wrench with a 3' breaker bar. (I did not try freezing the cylinder and using a heat gun on the base) All wihtout any luck.

When I went back to the chair manufacturer that provided the cylinder (along with a new seat etc...) they said the online chair removal tools only work for newer chairs.

Well, how wrong is that? I was at wits end and ordered the Office Oasis tool. It arrived quickly (I paid the $5 for 2 day.) Within 30 minutes I installed the collars, used the tightening screws and my 27 year old ultra stuck cartridge popped right off.

I wasted so much time and money following other tips on the internet, I wish I would have read these reviews. If it didn’t work for you, find another person and walk through the instructions again…

I did already have the chair mechanism off and mounted it on a 8 x 10 piece of wood and put it in a vice… so was able to get the top collar very tight… (should not be necessary to do this)

Better to be patient and wait a few days to receive this simple tool… good luck. Hope my review saves you the pain I went through.

Using the provided tools and instructions, replacement was easy and quick. New cylinder holds my weight with no sagging. Excellent product.

I could not get the piston out of my chair with this tool. Maybe it’s me, but I read the directions 3 times and followed the instructions ( although they didn’t seem like they would work). I left the inside clamp(A) loose, as directed, and the upper one tight. But when I used the expansion screws, the two collars separated from each other, but the piston didn’t move. I tried tightening the inside collar, but that didn’t work either. It would make more sense to me if the inside collar went over the collar of the seat plate that the piston fits into. But the directions didn’t say to do that. It wouldn’t have mattered because the collars were too small to go around the seat plate collar. Overall, it was a great idea, but didn’t work for me. As a last resort, a lot of WD40 and a pipe wrench did the trick.

Worked like a charm!

The Oasis Chair Cylinder removal tool worked exactly as expected. My chair cylinder was a bit rusted in and it took a couple tries but without the tool, I am not sure I'd have been able to remove the cylinder.