Who has made their own? I am talking about the style where you can crank the engine around to any angle and lock it in place. I am thinking this would be a cool way to demonstrate things to the students but don't want to fork out that kinda money.... Any ideas?? thanks-
google Home made Engine Stands. Came across one that used a flex plate and a starter drive gear for a gear reducer to turn the engine. Would be a great project for the welding class students or a local H A M B member that has some welding and fab experience.
I don't have any pictures but I saw a real heavy duty home made stand that used big truck air brake parts for the rotator. He used a slack adjuster as the rotator and a complete S cam for the rotating axle. The mounting plate was welded where the S cam was and he made a crank handle that went on the adjuster bolt for turning over.
While it is not home made, I have to say that I love my Sunnex gear-drive stand. You could stick a worm gear winch from Horrible Fright on a regular style one. I have used these winches in a couple of applications. They are simple, and strong enough. A little cutting and welding would get the frame on the stand, and the drum on the head: http://www.harborfreight.com/2000-lb-capacity-geared-winch-5798.html $27.99
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/rotator-for-engine-stand.734137/#post-8155589 Or the one I copied from this. After a while the belt broke and I just used a crank and cam gear without the chain. Works fine
That is true of any common engine stand. I have found the winch drive has enough resistance to hold the engine in place. I still like to put the pin in.
That's the stand I made. More info on how I put it together here. http://www.trifive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74486
What about the factory style engine stands that pivot the engine between the middle of the block. They have two pivots. the block rotates 90 deg. to common stand.
I used one like that years ago that had a crank on it to turn it. It was a factory built stand though an would hold anything that you could figure out how to bolt up to it. Really nice for holding a heavy block in a vertical position so you could put pistons in one side and your helper could catch the rod and put the rod cap on without flipping the engine over. I have a monster of an engine stand made out of 4x4 square tubing that a student built years ago and I ended up buying for the cost of the materials. It needs the head that the brackets to mount engines on it reworked to be right but I think that one will get a crank and gears on it as I am not as strong as I was 35 years ago when flipping an engine over on a stand wasn't a problem.
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