Thread: Building a bearing press / shop press for LR work - what dimensions shall I make it?

Go Large !!! In case you have to straighten a chassis!

15T may struggle with a few things, namely rear ball joint.

I think my press is 10 or 20t and I couldn’t press out the rear radius arm to chassis bushes for the D2. It wasn’t strong enough.

Dug the jack I was planning to use out of the shed. It's a 12T stubby bottle jack.

There is a 20T air over hydraulic unit available, so going to work something like that into my design from a spacing perspective at least. Once the frame is made, most jacks could be used within it quite easily- so might buy a bigger model jack on a needs-be basis.

Planning for 600mm of usable width (should be heaps for a diff, transfer case etc).
There will be an 80mm wide window in the side of the 4 uprights- so can feed parts thru the side if needed.
Overall height could be about 1000mm, which will be reduced by approx 425mm for the sliding press carriage part and jack body- so 575mm usable height- still need to know if this is tall enoguh for Land Rover related home pressing jobs?

Any rigidity shortcomings in the horizontal members could be beefed up with additional pieces of RHS. The stock I have is 75x40x5mm.

I would be more tempted to buy a press off ebay or gumtree (can be had for less than $100) and then use the metal etc you have to turn it into what you want - I do know the ones I have used have all bent under heavy loads but could be reinforced.

Garry

The standard design is C channel, usually only 2 uprights, and up to 20T (most are less than this). So not the most sturdy.
The steel I have is scrap, doesn't owe me anything, so even throwing a new air over hydraulic 50T jack at it, it'd still be cheaper than most of the lesser rated new, complete units.

Toxic
I built a 5hp 240VAC hydraulic press into a a huge old manual press I picked up stupid cheap
The cylinder I used has a 2” piston in a 5” bore from memory
Anyways - 5hp was the biggest single phase motor I could get
The pump i used means overall the pressing force is theoretically 30 ish Tonnes

The frame would be good for well more - it uses 250mm UniBeams of ~30kg a m
For uprights and the Bed
I have 3/4” steel plates bolted to two beams for the bed

Anyways, even with my measly 30T she still groans a bit

I fear your RHS May be a little light even for 12T for the bed at 600mm between uprights?
It will be fine for the uprights I imagine

Now when it comes to size
I was warned by a few knowledgeable people in my build thread

A press is always either a shade not enough or a whisker too much
I can tell you that my thing will do a nice job of Fubarring an LT230 front output housing when “miss-pressing” a bearing!!!!

When building have a think about tooling
Before I built I had a bought cheapy 20T
It was a hateful POS - the pressing component was machines off axis and the press plates and bed were wobbly.

Aim to build something that pushes straight and true and has some manner that you can easily modify tooling to the face of.

Steve

Also fear the RHS may not be up to the task.

Come around to work and have a look at our (very) old 60T press, i also have a 20T??? press frame sitting out the side that i have to take home one day. Mite get some ideas.