I have a 1Ton Harbor Freight Engine Hoist that I don’t use a lot. However pulled it out to use and found the boom slowly lowers even without any load. It is not leaking externally so ***ume it may be a internal “O” Ring. Anyone have this problem and if so how did you fix it. Thanks
The actual sealing surface is a steel ball bearing seating in a bore. I would imagine it could be pitted or have a chunk of junk stuck in it? Get a clean bucket, and start carefully pulling it apart. Remember, you just need to seat the ball to seal the circuit, not tighten the **** out of it.
I have an engine hoist from Auto Value and it has always lowered slowly even with the valve wide open.
Mine sits outside, and if i don't use it often it does that. I pull the screw all the way out and clean it, spray a shot of pb blaster in the hole and put it back in. Luckily this always fixes it
If not a leaking check then it's most likely the main seal. I've repaired a few of them that leaked down and found the main seals were the problem.
Not on their engine hoist, (I don't have a HF hoist). But I have returned two of their three ton floor jacks that slowly compressed under a load.
I have 2 floor jacks and both of them leak when you tighten them, they just don't quit leaking fluid, both should've been returned years ago. Next time I will buy their extended warranty...
I would not use anything from HF that has any possibility of putting life and limb at danger. Their stuff is poorly made, with poor quality materials........good for the s**** heap only in my opinion. Do not be "penny wise and pound foolish"......as the Brits say......buy quality and avoid injury.
When your jack slowly compresses under load, it might have air in it. Remove the oil fill plug completely and pump it really fast about 20 times. Top off the oil and see if that fixed it. After using the jack, tighten the release valve all the way every time. I read the instruction manual and bigger than ****, it worked. LOL if your jack slowly compress und load,
Mine doesn't leak down but they could have at least put steerable front wheels on the POS. I swear at it every time I use it. I must like swearing cuz I haven't taken the time to fix it yet!
While I'll be the first to admit that HF quality can vary widely, I've had good service from the vast majority of their products that I've bought. You do need to be a bit selective in what you buy from them, but when buying 'name brand' can mean multiplying the price by 3 to 10 times, you have to decide if you want to do things the easy way with the right tool or go without and struggle through. I've seen name-brand jacks that leak down too... I've got 5 of their floor jacks, very happy with all of them.
Billy, it's not a bad thing, it not having them, HF has got to have the cheapest Chinese wheel bearings and swivel casters out there, money well spent on quality ones like from an industrial supplier like McMaster-Carr or Grainger.
No lie! I have one of their 2 ton aluminum race jacks, the front wheels haven't spun in years, its one of the reasons i wax my floor, so it slides around easier.
I bought the bigger of the two HF hoists about 7 or 8 years ago. Never an issue with it. I just tighten it enough to hold the load. I’m opposite of what was mentioned before, when not in use I leave the valve open. For the last 5 years it’s lived outside. Only thing I don’t like about it is the ram Isn’t chrome, But leaving it down all the time I’m not concerned with the rust that form on the ram. In the winter I spray WD 40 on it. It’s been fine so far I had to extend the business beam on it, and before next use the legs will get extended too. I don’t mind the front wheels being fixed. Now when it comes to buying a real one, we have one at work that hasn’t lifter a thing in the 2 years it’s been there after the 3 use the ram was leaking to the point you can’t raise it without a load. All it ever lifted was 7.5 HP motors and gear boxes ( bought new through Grainger?) i forget the name but looked up the price of it , 700 or 800 and came with a **** ram from day one. Now say that was the unit I bought, and only used it 3 times in 2 years, then it went to hell. Cost of a ram from Granger would be twice the price of the HF unit. I’m not bashing American quality, buts it’s not what it was 30 years ago. HF stuff is fine for the majority of people who use the stuff occasionally. As far as being concerned with safety, I don’t trust any type of a Jack stand, sawed off 8x8s etc is my back up plan. Back to regularly scheduled programming
Yeah, I had the exact same problem with one of their hoists. I could not fix it and asked at a hydraulic repair shop. I found out it was cheaper to just buy another hydraulic cylinder.
Buying name brand at 3-10 times the price, you have to look and a bit of investigation research because it’s quite possible the unit is made in the exact same damn Chinese factory. Inter web surfing on alibbaba is quite enlightening.
Yep, that's the hell of it too. I'm old enough to remember when the chinese stuff first showed up in the early '70s. I wanted a floor jack badly, but if you could find one for sale privately, used service-station units were $100 if they were basically worn out, $200 if they worked 'OK' and didn't leak down too quickly, and $400 or more for new. As cheesy as the imports were, $40 for one was something I could afford on my $140 per week pay. Yeah, it scared the hell out of me a few times until I fixed some issues and would leak down over night, but was still working the same when I gave it to my grandson early this year. The last tool item I ever bought from Sears was a Motorcycle/ATV lift. Sears was offering it for $140, or about 1/2 of the 'pro' units that had come out a bit earlier. Made in china. Imagine my dismay when I found the identical-except-for-paint-color unit 6 months later at 'Tool Town' for $60. After than, I learned to shop around...
Worked on a guys car at his house awhile back. I learned to bring my own tools. Using his, scared the **** out of me. There is a difference. And I`m not talking about the kind you buy off the truck either.
A new 8 ton ram from HF is 69.99 meaning I wouldn't spend a lot of money trying to repair one. I've got a joe cheap engine hoist that I bought at one of those tools sales that used to set up at the fair grounds or Legion hall or any other building they could rent for about three days. Paid 100 bucks for it close to 20 years ago and haven't had any trouble with it but the tubing is pretty light weight. I'm not getting under any engine hanging from any engine hoist or chain hoist and it isn't because of the hoist. I've seen the carnage of at least three that had bolts break that the chain hooked to when they were lifted. I've had just as much trouble with high dollar jacks bleeding down as cheap jacks and those high dollar ones didn't do much better after I had them rebuilt. I'm talking big walker 5 ton floor jacks there. True they were older jacks and had been in school shop for years but still they didn't last long enough to make the expense of having them rebuilt.
The only issue I have ever had with my 10 year old HF engine hoist is when I cleaned out a truck puller garage and he had 2 iron big block Chevies that were complete and the blocks were poured full to the top with concrete. They were alcohol motors with no cooling. They leaked down with that much on them otherwise no issues. Mine stays indoors and gets the ram totally down so I can store it. I use mine all the time and maybe that's why yours leaks down. Why does every time someone mentions Harbor Freight it turns into a bashing session? I could say I bought a wrench from there and you guys start talking about how many bad screwdrivers you bought there. If you don't like their stuff then go to buy the new foreign made Craftsman junk. Don't think Snap-On makes all of their own tools. I am not defending HF . Yes I have a lot of their tools because I was once a prisoner of the Snap-On dealer.
Have an older harbor freight hoist, best one at the time. Worked fine for years, my dad left a 409 hanging on it for over a month and the ram was shot. Probably could have rebuilt the ram, but replaced it with a slower unit with more lifting power, slow and steady is OK with me. When I use any hoist, ill hook up the engine and let it hang for a hour, measure height, to be sure its not bleeding off. Most arent maintained well, dont need any surprises. Low oil, dirty oil, wrong oil, air in the ram and bad seals (o-rings) usually take care of the issue.
My own experience with their stuff is usually that I try to get too much out of them. Bottom line is that they sell a price level and not a quality level. First time I even HEARD of Harbor Freight was in the early '80's when I was in the Navy. IIRC they were only mail order at the time or possibly only West coast. Funny thing? The NAVY bought a ****load of products from them. I was a Storekeeper in Inventory Control and handled the invoices myself for our ship and twelve tended units. A ****LOAD.
Best cheap tool I ever bought was in 1979.The parts store I worked in had 2 ton roll around floor jacks that retailed at 99 bucks.My cost even less. Painted orange,and white with a made in Japan sticker on it.figured if I got two years out of it I "d break even. Still works just fine after a lot of abuse.
Interesting...I use my floor jack and engine hoist to lift and lower stuff, not to support it for any length of time. The ones I use most are pretty damn old, although they were cheap when new. They don't leak down that I've seen, and I think I've only had to refill the floor jack once in all those years, as it was not going up as high as it should. The loss was so gradual, that adding some fluid made it seem like I had a new floor jack. I also squirt some oil on the casters and wheels and pivot points occasionally, and it just glides across the floor. I don't know where you can buy good equipment today, unfortunately.
I have bought several pieces of equipment from HF and have been well pleased. However, I am just a tinker.
A few years ago at an auction my wife was buying "stuff" and in a pile of junk she bought was an old cheap small floor jack, it looked like ****. We loaded it up with the rest of the stuff, didn't pay much attention to it but later I checked it and it worked fine. I shoved it out of the way (I had two floor jacks already, one a nice OLD Craftsman). I had an old transmission jack that the cylinder had failed on, I couldn't get it apart so...........I looked at that ****py one from the sale. You guessed it, I did a little fab work and the cylinder off off the floor jack ended up in the transmission jack. It works fine............well, I loaned it to my cousin a couple of years ago.......I haven't needed it so I guess he is storing it
HF didn't show up around my area until Post Tool left, cool thing about Post Tool, was even though they had offshore stuff, they had name brand as well...Makita, Milwaukee, etc. Recall them? Anyways, after they left, there was a period where the traveling tool circus would swing by, best thing to get there was CO2 BBguns Then HF rolled in.
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