Engine Rebuild Stand

[KPAero]

With some extra time over the last couple weeks to spend in the workshop, I decided it would be a good opportunity to tackle some projects I had on the long term list. The first of which was a new engine stand, which would be attempt number three for me, and I had decided I would only do it if I could end up with something really nice. Attempt number one had been similar to any generic cheap stand, number two had some stronger tubing, flange bearings for the pivot and incorporated a worm gear set in a box I made out of some steel plate. This had good potential, but ultimately the worm gear would have needed some more work, and the whole thing couldn't really handle a really heavy load.

I've been acquiring some of the components for this for a couple years in anticipation of someday having some time... So, it started out with some much heavier duty steel box tubing. 2.5x2.5x3/16" for the base, and 3x5x.25" for the vertical member. I had internally dubbed this project "engine stand HD". I wanted to avoid any tall gusseting that might clutter the work area up around the engine, and I needed to provide a wider base for the vertical member to sit on to make up for the extra .5" width of the tube, so I cut out 10 matching curved gussets from some 3/16" plate to weld in the corners, and then covered those in some lighter gauge strips to box it all in. Prior to welding the vertical tube in I spent some time getting it well clamped to try and keep it square while welding.





After that I made some plates to bolt some locking castors I already had to the stand. These got some weld nuts on the plates and 14ga gussets, more to clean up the look then actually add strength as I don't think that would have been necessary.



Next up was to get the head of the stand welded on, with mounting plates for the flange bearings that will carry the rotating shaft and faceplate. The flange bearings and 2" shaft were used to keep everything lined up during welding.





After that was done the shaft was removed and both ends were turned down. One side needed to step down to 1" to fit into the worm drive assembly Im using, and for the front I added two steps. The first gave me a shoulder to press the faceplate down onto and a good place to weld it on the front while maintaining a nice flat mounting surface for the fixtures. The second step down is intended so any fixtures can incorporate a common size tube where the ID would fit onto the short stub to help take some of the weight and make it easier to line things up. I also cut out a faceplate from a piece of 3/8" wear plate I had bought at a local steel yard from the buy the pound section. It had a center bore that would press onto the shaft, and a selection of threaded holes and slots for fixing options for various fixtures. In the photo its being preheated before welding the front and back to the shaft.

[KPAero]

Next up was to weld the faceplate on, and then reassemble what I had so far and figure out how to mount the gearbox, which is a 60:1 worm gear set in a cast iron housing.




The gearbox came with a set of cast brackets, that I had originally thought I would use, but after looking at it I decided it would be simpler to weld a mount onto the stand that would pick up the four threaded holes that one of the brackets bolted to. Probably stiffer and stronger in the end as well. The final result was a 3/16" plate that picked up the four bolt holes and then bent down to meet the vertical tube and clear the bearing. This was reinforced with a 12ga taco gusset. I tacked the two pieces together on the stand, welded the assembly on the bench (still bolted to the box to minimize warping), and then welded it onto the stand with everything assembled to hold it in place. At this point everything fits together nice and rotates really smooth. Im excited to put some weight on it to test it out, but first it needs a couple more items to finish it off.

[Jordan]

Looks great Pascal, Jealous of your shop! I miss this stuff.

[squaab99t]

Fantastic job. I’ve been thinking about an engine stand too. I like the design of the Beta tool, but I’m unsure if I’d trip on the two forward reaching legs?
Nice gusset work and the bearings in double shear.

[KPAero]

Thanks, the shop space has been great. We moved in back in November and it was the first time we had a space where we could keep all of our stuff in one spot. So much easier than having stuff spread over multiple locations...

My obsession with building a better engine stand started with seeing Lukes build on here, but other than the construction of the rotating assembly, I hadn't really planned anything else out before starting this one. Anyway, I considered doing the two legged design and having a table at a convenient height to roll in between the legs, copying Lukes work. Ultimately I was swayed away from that for the potential of the legs feeling in the way while working on the engine. I looked up the Beta stand and it does look nice. I did some work for someone who had bought this engine stand from Sunex- https://sunextools.com/products/12-ton- ... ine-stand/

I was working on a pretty lightweight engine, but it was a nice unit.

[KPAero]

Next up I needed to order a few things to put together a handle for the drive. Having used the sunex stand mentioned above, one thing I found frustrating was the really crap crank handle. The gearbox has a shaft with a keyway for driving the worm gear. I decided to try making the handle out of steel plate and incorporating a key into the piece. However, I wanted more than just the single 3/16" plate thickness of key, so I doubled the thickness in that area with a second piece of plate. That worked out rather well and I repeated that on the other end with a double thickness piece with a taped hole. I had also ordered a sleeve with the right 5/8 inside diameter to space the handle out to the end of the shaft. To help avoid a wobbly handle I turned the sleeve down to the right length and then welded it to the handle. The other half of the handle is made up of a shoulder bolt and a couple flanged ball bearings pressed into a piece of tube.





While things were apart, the main shaft also got a key way cut into it to lock the shaft and the gearbox together. Finally, I had also ordered a set of the correct size 9/16" bolts to hold the head together.

[Crazyswede]

Looks like you just built both your engine stand and half of your rotisserie

[Crazyswede]

Unfortunately you lose points for not melting down your old Saab gearbox and pouring your own crank housing from your own home made mould :)

[KPAero]

Haha, thats definitely true. Fortunately, I don't think Ill be tempted to make version 4 any time soon, because making all the housings would definitely open the possibilities and clean up the look.

The rotisserie possibility definitely crossed my mind. It wouldn't be that hard to make a matching stand without the worm drive to go on the other side of a car. Now that I think about it, maybe that would be a good use for the last engine stand....

[KPAero]

Got the stand mostly finished up. Still needs paint, but I want to wait until after one round of using it first (and a nice day for painting)



I also made up a new fixture for the engine to mount to the stand. A little more substantial than what I had before to hopefully match the heft of the stand.




I have some jobs to do on the SPG's engine and gearbox, so I pulled that to put it on the stand. Now I just need new gearbox and cylinder head fixtures as well.

[Krizzie]

Looking very nice and sturdy!

[Geoff]

Looks good! How many times have you spun the engine around? I'd probably be cranking the handle going "wheee!"

What is this car? Is it the white one you were rallycrossing?

WhiteCar.jpg (28.34 KiB) Viewed 5912 times

One of my co-workers built a bike stand the other day. The complete opposite end of the spectrum!

BikeStand.jpg (269.4 KiB) Viewed 5912 times

[KPAero]

I started off just cranking it back and forth smiling. Tomorrow Ill see how it goes unbolting the gearbox by myself and getting it off the block. Maybe I need an adapter for a jack or something.

The white car is my brothers not yet finished e30 rally/hillclimb project, although it should be done this summer. A selection of random pictures I have of it-

[gmreider]

That's really nice work on the engine stand !
And that BMW build looks really nice also.

SAAB question ? Are you still using the S& R 4 speed gear set in the black car. I seem to remember , you had 1 failure of some sort?
MY S & R box has done like 24 hill climb events and the only issue was the shifter assembly. I bent the reverse lock out pin after it came loose.
Maybe , we'll connect at some event.

Nice shop space .

[KPAero]

I am, after a couple years I bought another kit and saved the rest of the old one for spare parts. In my case the pinion bearing housing broke, and the resulting thrust load ruined 4th gear and a couple other parts. So really not a failure of the S&R kit, and I didnt previously know of the weakness of some of the aluminum housings. I now have one of the billet bearing housings, so that shouldn't be an issue in the future I don't think.