With my BMW e30 needing all new bearings/bushes around the car, I thought it would be best to have my own press, so that there's no need for me to be waiting on friends or work plans to get it done.
I decided to try out an eBay 'special' which I knew would be a liability, but one I thought to be worth it. I went with the larger of the main 3 sizes; 6, 12 and 20 tons as I knew that they would be exaggerating the load and I needed some serious grunt for the work I had planned.
On first inspection, it seemed as I'd expect; some pretty questionable welding and an excessive use of paint, there were no damaged or missing parts so we were off to a good start.
Upon the completion of assembly, there were now definetly more issues found with the press, including incorrect dimensions, poor paint finish and some serious safety issues.
I went ahead with a quick max load test and found there to be no real problems at full capacity, the cylinder would pass fluid if not very tight which was a pain with such a small screw.
Moving onto practical applications, the press really did impress me with the ease at which it would remove the bearings and bushes.
I had added a set of press blocks with 4 altering shapes which helped massively.
Hydraulic Press: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20-Ton-Adj...
Press Blocks: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/press-bloc...