Home made 6 ton shop press
In preparation for the differential gear swap I needed a shop press to press bearings on and off. After looking at some in the catalogs it seemed pretty simple to make. It would also serve well as a welding practice project as at this time I wanted to weld up whatever I got my hands on. I picked up a cheap 3 ton bottle jack at the pawn and started to make plans. I had some leftover 1.5x1.5x1/8 square tubing from the tire carrier project and I thought it would be strong enough for a 3 ton press frame. I looked at pictures of some commercial presses and settled on a simple rectangular frame design. I got some stiff return springs and some eye bolts from the local hardware store and went to work.
I cut the pieces and welded up the square frame then cut some pieces for the bottle base as well as for the press platform. I welded tabs on the bottle base that allows it to slide inside the frame and welded two pieces into an "H" to serve as the press platform. I then welded a plate to the jack base with some small pieces fencing in the bottle jack and also welded on the shortened eye bolts. I needed to drill some holes in the frame for the press platform to rest on then installed the springs and the bottle jack, oiled the sliding surfaces and tested the operation:
I tested it on the spare Dana 35c pinion I had which had a pinion bearing already pressed on. It wouldn't budge and as the jack was reaching it's full capacity things were flexing a little. So it looked like I had to do some redesigning and upgrading. Luckily Wal-Mart had a sale on the 6 ton jacks so I picked one up. I welded some reinforcement 1.5x1.5x1/8 scrap pieces to the top of the frame where it flexed the most and also upgraded the 3/8 grade 8 bolts that hold the press platform to 1/2 inch grade 8. The result was very satisfying:
I had no problem pressing off the bearing save for the wrong technique I used to position the bearing separator:
The flex in the separator halves promptly boogered up the bearing cage so be careful!
Overall it was a great project at a fraction of the cost of the commercial models.