Finishing a heavy home-made press project

[YY1]

I bought this project at the estate sale of a late hot rodder/ metal fabricator.

It's made of heavy 6" C channel. all joints look to be stick welded.
I don't know what was used to make the holes for the bridge supports, but they are high precision holes that almost look punched! The supports are 1.5"!
I think this is possibly a 50 ton unit. 30 at the least.
There's a cable hoist to help raise the bottom bridge.
I added some guide rollers between the front and back versus the square tube that was there. The hydraulics were originally a porta-power. Expensive Enerpac brand.
It came with three small rams, but I've blown the seals on all of them
It had a large ram that was leaking badly when I got it. I looked for replacements on ebay and they were $1000 for one that size! That ram was bolted to a 1/2" plate welded between the top C channels, and the upper press bridge was free swinging and sprung to that plate.
It came with a kind of wimpy 7/16 press plate.
In order to use it, I drilled the press plate to accept the smaller rams and mounted it so it spanned the top C channels and reinforced it with a cut down hitch receiver between the 7/16" plate and the top 1/2" plate.
Sine I blew those rams, I'm fabricating a new press bridge and installing a 20 ton bottle jack.
Here I'm using the jack to hold the 7/16" plate and receiver brace so I can bolt it to the 1/2" plate. Note the 1/2" plate I bought (a pair actually) from a thrift tool store(!) for $6!

 

[YY1]

I scored a piece of 6" C channel at a place called, appropriately enough "A piece of Metal" it was $20. Not super easy to find. Here it is on my $100 used HF band saw.

Here are the return springs mocked up with the new bridge in place.
Due to the spacing of the bolts and size of the 1/2" plate, I had to use the same line for the springs. Barrel nuts to the rescue.
Note my old press plate- a tapered to 7/16 with reinforcing ribs railroad tie plate.
Except for the rough surface, it performed well. I found it and it's twin metal detecting where an old RR spur had been.

 

[YY1]

Here are the barrel nuts and the 2" C channel (Tractor Supply $15 ea) I'm going to use to keep the bridge from kicking out. Again, because of the top plate size, I had to look for a jack that would fit in the space available. I also had to mount it sideways. I thought about having the handle on the other side, but my left is actually stronger, and it leaves my right free for adjustments to the work piece. I looked at a LOT of consumer bottle jacks, and the Toirrin "Big Red" was by far the most cleanly constructed. The waffle pattern on the top pad was no contest. Most others were not even centered. If they can't take the time to get that right, what does it say about quality in general.

I'm also using a section of class III hitch receiver to hold the jack pad centered on the top plate.

 

[YY1]

I had to cut down the eye hooks to get the proper length of the return spring assembly. I was out of practice dressing a cut down thread, but I got it and repeated it. Like butta, baby.

While we're on threads. I discovered my Kobalt 3/8-16 tap was garbage. I plan on threading the sides of the bridge to attach the 2" guides. It was really tough to thread the hole I drilled using the supplied in the same package 5/16 bit. Then the bolt was really tough to thread in and it distorted. We have a tool guy at the local flea market, and I scored a real nice tap with a much larger tang at the top, and a spline socket that fits it. $4 and it works GREAT.

 

[YY1]

While I was at it I made a couple more mods to my band saw.
I already fabricated a replacement upright table from two shipping hold downs and a couple countersunk ss machine screws, and a place to store it when not in use.
Today, I drilled a hole to keep a stubby philips hand for installing and removing it.
Sine I had to put on a new blade, I also added a clip and drilled a cheap 10mm wrench, to stick in it.

 

[YY1]

Here's the free hanging "nose" the previous owner had.
It's HEAVY.
For lack of a better option, I guess I'll just tap it and bolt it to the bottom of the captive bridge I'm making. Cutting of the mounts was fun on the band saw.
I wonder if I'll have to use the spring eye's again.

 

[YY1]

Pleased with my progress this weekend.
Might actually be usable next weekend.

I'm moving this to the front burner because the UCA bushings in my Satellite have reached the end of life stage and my camber is excessive.
I've never done a non-cam adjusted Mopar front end.
I know I'll need to press the UCA bushings both ways on the slider.
I hope I can get the slider back in the right place and tight.
I was real good about getting the cams where they needed to be.
I'm thinking just draw a paint pen line and put it back there.
New bushings should put the line close to where it needs to be since almost all the wear is inboard.

 

[Cranky]

Love doing fab work but my body complains a lot these days when I work with anything heavy. And Vermont, Bath and TRW are a few good names for quality taps etc. Also, what kind of bushings are you planing on using for your UCA's?

 

[ws23jrt]

I enjoyed reading this. It brought back memories of a press I bought from a small business going out of sale. It was 7 ft tall and homemade from 4in channel. The cylinder was a 4In. dia. Boeing aircraft landing gear cylinder with 16in stroke. Got some use out of it but was afraid of blowing out the cheesy welds on the frame.
I went through much of what you are doing and eventually ended up with a completely new frame to make good use of the cylinder. My frame is now 3"x6"x 3/8"wall rec. tubing. ----It was one of those things where one thing led to another but it was fun building it. (the belt driven piston pump is on top for now).

 

[ws23jrt]

I bought this project at the estate sale of a late hot rodder/ metal fabricator.

It's made of heavy 6" C channel. all joints look to be stick welded.
I don't know what was used to make the holes for the bridge supports, but they are high precision holes that almost look punched! The supports are 1.5"!
I think this is possibly a 50 ton unit. 30 at the least.
There's a cable hoist to help raise the bottom bridge.
I added some guide rollers between the front and back versus the square tube that was there. The hydraulics were originally a porta-power. Expensive Enerpac brand.
It came with three small rams, but I've blown the seals on all of them
It had a large ram that was leaking badly when I got it. I looked for replacements on ebay and they were $1000 for one that size! That ram was bolted to a 1/2" plate welded between the top C channels, and the upper press bridge was free swinging and sprung to that plate.
It came with a kind of wimpy 7/16 press plate.
In order to use it, I drilled the press plate to accept the smaller rams and mounted it so it spanned the top C channels and reinforced it with a cut down hitch receiver between the 7/16" plate and the top 1/2" plate.
Sine I blew those rams, I'm fabricating a new press bridge and installing a 20 ton bottle jack.
Here I'm using the jack to hold the 7/16" plate and receiver brace so I can bolt it to the 1/2" plate. Note the 1/2" plate I bought (a pair actually) from a thrift tool store(!) for $6!

View attachment 546367

You mentioned a large ram that was leaking?---You should have little problem replacing the seals.
I had to replace the seals on my Boeing cyl. (four or five vee shaped seals that were not hard to find). Or you could take yours to a place that repairs those things for much less than buying a replacement.

 

[YY1]

2018 update.

I was sick with the same dang thing three times since these pics!!!

I'm still not 100% and it's been 30 degrees overnight the past week.

I did manage to get a few more things done however-

Mounted the guides on the press bridge...

Note the "helper" that showed up. More on her later.

...and mounted the bridge on the press.

I think I might need to move my springs outboard.

The bridge wants to cock about 1/2 the time.
That might help with that issue, and it will give me more room to orient the jack.

I also need to figure out what to do about that nose piece.

 

[YY1]

I could, however, use it at this point.

I think the springs could be tighter as well to keep the jack from sliding around.


So, this cat comes up while I'm working and just sits down.

After a while it looks at me and meows.

If I went more than a few feet outside the bay, it followed.

At one point it meowed and kept meowing until I petted it.

It tried to get in my lap several times.

It let me pick it up, and purred loudly.

It's a girl

Since then she's come back at least four times.

Unfixed. No collar.