Harbor Freight 44811 Bench Press

I haven't used it, but it's based around the common "Porta-a-Power" type cylinder and remote pump, which are well known and work fine. The remote pump setup also makes it easy to add a pressure gauge. Of course being a bench press there are the obvious limits on the size of items you can fit in it vs. the H frame presses with adjustable heights.

Yes, but it would be very nice on space. I am thinking about replacing my Famco 3R with it.

some hydraulics I've gotten from HF in the past would fail when the internal seals went bad after a few years - they used unusually cheap plastic at one time - don't know if they have improved the materials since or not

That may be a consideration.

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I used second-hand cylinders of this type on my front end loader. A repair shop was able to order seals matching the OD and ID of the originals but I had to do some machining to fit their length. I made the spanner wrench to remove the piston retainer sleeves from a U of

3/16" welding rod ground to fit the notches. The cylinders are threaded to the bases with no obvious way to grab them with a wrench. The ones I bought weren't screwed on very tight. I think I used a Vise-Grip chain wrench to loosen them.

Two repair shops have told me the seals on import hydraulics are frequently custom-made rather than catalog parts. They thought that machined adapters would be -very- expensive and unreasonable.

I'm so used to designing and making whatever I want that I may have lost touch. What's your experience having a shop solve a problem rather than simply machining to a drawing?

Jim Wilkins