Don't buy a Chinese-made press. I bought a brand new 12-ton press from Harbor Freight and the bottle jack broke on me. Good thing the majority of the bushings were pressed in. The only ones left were the RTA's, in which case we just pounded the s**t out of it. I know about the RTA tool but I needed to get my dd up and running.

 

i broke the frame on the one i bought to press some bearings

 

Those are some pretty terrible presses. I used to use one and it made the jobs take forever. I always had to "reset" the bushing/arm/gear/whatever because they would have a tendency to go in crooked.

If you pony up the cash and get a good press it'll cut down your install time and headaches liek you wouldn't believe. The right tool for the job makes all the difference in the world.

 

Where can I get a good hydraulic press? Only place I can think of is Chinese special Harbor Freight

 

Harbor Freight does have some nice presses. Check the higher price offerings like this one:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=95865

It doesn't need to be hooked up to an air source. You can use it as a completely manual press.

The difference for the price is the design. This has a secured piston that comes down straight and true. It's a very solid design that won't kick your bushings crooked.



The $200 offerings have a piston that isn't secured and sways a lot when you're using it. The orange bar is supposed to help guide the piston down but there's too much play. Almost everything you'll try to press in will have a tendency to go in crooked. This only gets worse with time/use.

 

Yeah I noticed that while pressing in the new bushings. A couple of them became slightly deformed cuz of the stupid press. And yes this job is taking forever to do. This supposedly 2-day job is now in its 4th day.

 

The above red press will have it down to under an hour if all the arms are off the car. No bullshit.

In fact, we just broke a press today like the orange one except this one was white and made by IIT. Same poor design but this one the air cylinder (which isn't even attached to the press unit) started leaking it's first use. Yup, FIRST USE.

 

Cool. I'll look into that red press when I need a pressing job done again. But as for that press you broke, that's pretty sad it couldn't even perform its first press job. Was it made in China?

 

I don't know where it was made, but here's a link to the company's site:
http://www.iittool.com/products.asp?id=20&page_no=2




That press has a retail of over $430 so for the extra money it's worth it to go to the better design.