DIY 20-Ton Shop Press With Upside Down (Inverted) Bottle Jack

Difficulty Level (Easy, Medium, Hard, Insane):
Medium

Process:
A few years ago I had to change my van's wheel bearing and ended up having to use a friend of mine's shop press to remove the axle from the wheel bearing (it was completely rusted in) so that's the first time I've wanted to get a shop press, but since the Princess Auto Shop Presses are close to $500 bucks here in Canada and even the Harbor Freight Shop Press is almost $300 bucks (with the current exchange rate) I've never taken the plunge to buy one.

So it was about a month or so ago when I got into a bit of a rut and decided that there's nothing better than a "little" project to snap out of it. Hence, the 20-ton shop press project.

I had bought a whole bunch of metal at an auction in March including two 8" c-channels that were 30" wide so I decided to buy the rest of the material and get building the shop press. The most time consuming part was drilling the 1.250" holes into the 3/8" vertical pieces of metal but after about an hour and a half (maybe 2 hours, I wasn't really timing it) it was all done.

The next thing I had to do was cut the horizontal bracing pieces and weld the two uprights. Then I had to drill the movable c-channels with 3/4" holes and make 4 spacer pins out of 1" hot rolled steel (that was fun).

Then I had to weld all the rest together and paint it. The last thing I had to do was take the bottle jack apart, connect a piece of vinyl hose to the pump inlet and then drill a hole into the side and connect it with an old gas tank that I used as an overflow reservoir for the hydraulic oil.

Lastly, I had to bend two 10" pieces of 3/8" square stock, drill and tap it for some 1/4" by 20 TPI bolts and hook it up to some trampoline springs for the piston return.

All-in-all, this project probably took me about 20 hours (I wasn't really counting) and cost me about $200 bucks. In all honesty, if I was really concerned about the time it would probably not be worth building it but would have just picked one up at Harbor Freight next time I was down in the states, but I wanted to work on a project and I still saved a few hundred bucks.

Videos:

Pictures:

The 8" c-channel pieces I bought at an auction

Grinding off the rust and yellow paint

The paint dust on the floor

The c-channel sans paint

Another view

The two c-channel pieces ready for welding

Lining up the vertical support pieces

Pre-drilling the 4 vertical pieces

Close-up of the 1/8" pre-drilling

Cutting the welded pieces to equal length

Welding the upright pieces

Another view

Making sure they're all perfectly square

Cutting the cross-brace pieces to length

The cut cross-brace pieces

One upright piece done, the other one being worked on in the background

Getting ready to weld the vertical pieces to the cross beam

The main beam welded to the support

Close-up of the welds

The cross braces above where the bottle jack will go

Welding casters to the legs 

Welding the legs to the frame

The welding all done

Another view

Cutting the lower cross beam to length

Drilling holes into the lower cross beam

Another view

Cutting the 1" bar for the cross braces

Cutting the relief grove on the cross brace

Close-up

Cutting the 3/4" by 10 TPI thread

Another view

Close-up of the thread

Another view

Test fitting the nut

The finished cross brace

Another view

The cross brace with the nuts screwed on

The lower cross beam ready for painting

Another view

The lower cross beam with one cross brace installed

Another view

Getting ready to paint the finished shop press

My temporary paint booth 

The shop press painted

Close-up

Another view

Another view

Another view

Drilling the mounting holes

Using a metal bar to unscrew the bottle jack lid

Using a metal bar to unscrew the bottle jack

The bottle jack after the fluid was drained and the outer shell taken off

Close-up of the suction hose

All the parts that came off the bottle jack

Cutting off part of the intake

The vinyl hose attached to the intake

The vinyl hose cut to size

The drilled hole and attached vinyl hose for the hydraulic oil overflow

Another view

Another view

Bleeding the bottle jack of all the air

Another view

Using prussian blue to flatten the bottom of the bottle jack

The high spots are marked blue

The closer to flat it gets, the more spread out are the blue spots

Cutting and drilling some aluminum trim to hold up the hydraulic oil overflow tank

The installed overflow tank

Another view

Close-up of the oil level indicater

Getting ready to install the jack ram return spring

Close up of the return springs and the hydraulic oil overflow connection

Tapping the 3/8" square bar of the piston return bracket

AutoCAD print-out of the piston return bracket

The piston return bracket and springs

Close-up of the right side of the piston return bracket

Another view

Close-up of the left side of the piston return bracket

Under-side view of the piston return bracket

The finished shop press

Tools:
Metal lathe & accessories
Metal Band Saw
Drill press
Drill
Drill bits
Measuring tape
Pencil
Marker
Mig welder
Stick welder (for the thicker stuff)
Tap & Die set
Adjustable wrench
Vise
Angle grinder
Ear muffs & safety goggles
Body paint spray gun
Socket set


Materials:
28' of 3" by 3/8" flat bar
4' of 1" solid round hot rolled steel
2' of 1.250" solid round hot rolled steel
4 casters
6' of 2" by 2" by 1/8" angle iron
5' of 1" by 1" by 1/8" angle iron
5' of 8" c-channel
6' of 6" c-channel
1 old lawn mower gas tank
2 L of hydraulic oil
2' of aluminum trim
4 screws for the tank
4" of 3/8" vinyl hose
1 brass adaper
6 trampoline springs
2' of 3/8" solid square steel
2 cap screws
1" of 5/8" brass for the spacer bushings
8 nuts (3/4" by 10 TPI)
Painters plastic
Black rust paint (1/2 L)

Cost:
$200.00

Time:
20 hours

Savings:
$100 to $300

Conclusion:
It works great. Now it's probably gonna sit in my storage room for the next year or two before I use it again. But just like a {fill in the blank}, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.