Mario,

Cheers for all that.

a mixture that eats steel and ali like acid eats a piece of chalk.
Id like to see that But I digress.

The larger ram (the one thats currently in bits) moves nice and smoothly and is all very clean except for a tiny bit of rust residue around the rubber part of the rod, and a coinciding mark (smooth) around the inside of the cylinder. The smaller ones are smoothish in motion, but move much more freely in a central 30mm section or so - I assume this is down to the adjustable damping which Ive had a play with, so it sounds like Im onto a good thing with them.

I would be interested in seeing a pic of your compressor setup - Ill send you a private with my email address on it. I think I already have the article on recycling rams now you come to mention it - Ill dig it out and have a look.

Its better to shut off the compressor than to vent pressure.
Thats what Im thinking, although the cheapest compressor I can find with this ability is £20, and its possible to find much cheaper variants without the auto shut off. Ill likely end up with the £20 one. Im just thinking from a spares point of view - Id sooner buy two at £7 each than two at £20 each.

Ill have a play with the valve and a servo although it takes a fair bit of force to push so Im not sure how well my standard servos will do.

OK - now to grease the one I have disassembled (and maybe the others if I can be bothered) - whats the best way to do this? Smear it on the rubber plunger and run it back and forth a few times? Or try to rub it directly on the inside of the tube?

Cheers again

-- Kev

p.s. If anyone else does know about RRC or even entered with a Rexs Robot style plywood flipper then Id be interested to know how it works.