Heavy duty transmission jack

[Frank S]

Many years ago when I regularly worked on heavy equipment and trucks I owned a heavy duty transmission jack the other day a friend called me to ask if I could put a clutch and rear main seal in his Mack. I told him sure why not. So he said he would be passing through in a couple of weeks after I hung up the phone I remembered that I don't have a jack any more. No problem I'll Hire my neighbor who lives about a mile away to bring his over. Big problem his is busted he needs to have it repaired. I offered to rebuild the ram for him but he had already taken it to a shop where they have ordered the parts not sure when they will be in or when he will get his jack back. So I decided to just build one.
After looking around I pulled a couple of 4x4 1/4" sq tubes out of my usable scrap pile dug out 4 heavy duty casters 2 rigid and 2 swivel from my storage van then found an 8 ton engine hoist jack. Hauled a piece of 1/2" plate steel out of my scrap pile and 8 lengths of 1" pipe that at one time was a sprinkler system A few feet of 3/4" 1018 cold roll rod for the pivots shafts and a lenght of 1/14" chromed cylinder rod for the pivots and a few set collars that I made up previously and I was all set I had a heavy duty transmission jack the only thing left to do was cut drill and weld all of this together







After welding the 1 " pipes together to make the link arms I needed a weld jig to make sure the ends were parallel and matching lengths
so I already had 1 hole in the 1" thick table I used my mag drill to drill another turning the table into a welding fixture or jig

I mig welded the ends on by welding about an inch inside of the pipes filling with weld

After all the ends were welded on the link arms and cooled I reamed the bores using my #7 tap handle on the tang of the MT#3 shank of a 3/4"

Pre-assembled everything before welding

Just tacked together

Now a fully functional transmission jack

I used KBS rust blast to remove the surface rust and provide a pre paint primer surface

KBS rust blast leaves a zinc coating that can either be brushed off or left in place Since I was out of etching primer I opted to just rub off and loose residue and leave the rest to serve as a primer

Painted with KBS rust seal machinery gray