Harbor Freight engine hoist

BobReeves

Member
Knowing I had a tractor split in my future started thinking of buying an engine hoist
Friday received a Harbor Freight flier with a 25% off coupon good today only. Took it in today and paid $157 and change for the HF 2 ton out the door. Looks to be well built and like the fold up feature. All in all think I got a pretty good buy.
 
I have a 2 ton and 3 ton and you will find more uses for the engine lift than you would have guessed when it is close at hand. You will not be sorry.
 
I've had one of their engine hoists for years and works fine. Since I don't rebuild engines daily I use mine mostly to put my bush hog on my tractor. I put a chain on the bush hog and lift it. With it suspended in mid air makes it a lot easier to mount to the tractor.
 
(quoted from post at 18:42:59 05/29/17) Knowing I had a tractor split in my future started thinking of buying an engine hoist
Friday received a Harbor Freight flier with a 25% off coupon good today only. Took it in today and paid $157 and change for the HF 2 ton out the door. Looks to be well built and like the fold up feature. All in all think I got a pretty good buy.

Decent price for a handy tool. That being said, they work great for somethings (like pulling out an engine, lifting heavy items to a bench, etc.) For use in splitting a tractor though ? PLEASE BE CAREFUL
 
You will find other uses for it besides engine stuff. Sometimes the legs get in the way but it makes a pretty good general lifting device. I have used mine to remove the lift cover from the tractor, hold up items like iron fence panels for painting, removing the flywheel as mentioned, just all sorts of stuff.
 
Not impressed they are light a full size
heavy v8 will stand it on end. You get what
you pay for. Light duty
 
I don't have one of the "fold-up" ones , mine is a chepo brand. With care it has installed a big block Ford and auto transmission into a 3/4 truck. Just respect it's limits, be cautious. I have some old wheel weights on the back side to help with the load. They are great with splitting tractors. joe
 
Now that you mention it I have placed 6x8x16 concrete blocks on the end of mine a time or two but that was when I was lifting around ton in the 500# pisition because I needed the extra length to reach the target. Mine has served me well for many years. Current usage is out in the yard to hook onto ZT lawn mower, winch em up and wash out the deck. Real handy.
 
I bought one at Farm/Fleet about seven years ago for not much more than you paid. Used it to pull my Super M engine and top of the transmission, now I use it to pick up things I used to do myself, like the fold up feature.
 
I have my dads old hoist with vertical screw and wheel, you can place things within thousands of an inch.

I think it from the 30s.
 
I used my HF engine hoist to remove a 5.0 litter V8 engine from my Chevrolet van and re-install it. Tight squeeze but no problem with the hoist.
 

The local New Holland/Ford dealer has a rolling A-frame to split anything. I would be very leery using a 2 ton to support half the tractor.

I had a 2.5" thick bakers table top that weighed 400 pounds??? Had to get a 200 pound person as a counter weight to keep the rear wheels on the ground.

It RnR'ed a 390 Ford in my pickup with no trouble, but that table was a challenge....
 
I purchased my HF 2-ton hoist with a similar coupon deal about 5 years ago.

It has served me well EXCEPT the pin (actually an ungraded bolt) in the lower lift cylinder clevis became bent after lifting a near capacity load. Hoist still worked fine, and the upper the upper (rod-end) pin was fine. But the bent pin troubled me.

For my peace of mine I replaced both cylinder pins with grade 5 bolts.
 

HF must have noticed the issue with the cylinder mounting bolts. Unpacked and assembled mine this morning and grade 8 bolts were supplied for all the pivot points. Went together really well, everything fit which was a surprise from past experience with China stuff. I would say this is a HF tool that doesn't suck, at least not too bad.
 
Interesting thing whenever someone posts about HF, there are always a bunch of people that criticize HF. Can't help but wonder if they ever actually tried whatever piece of equipment from HF was being discussed? Or is it just the "I hate stuff made in China" syndrome?

A lot of the stuff that HF sells has been greatly improved in recent years. Remember, the U.S.A. gave away most of their ability to make those things long ago so we don't have many other alternatives.
 
I saw that in the flier they sent and may get one myself. looks like it would be handy in the shop with my back being about shot.
Richard
 
That is what the leg extensions are for. If the legs are longer than the load they work ok, Just use common sense.
 

Just for the record, I've seen engine hoists that were made in the good old USA bend, break and tip. You throw common sense out the window and anything can fail.
 
(quoted from post at 04:49:18 05/30/17) I saw that in the flier they sent and may get one myself. looks like it would be handy in the shop with my back being about shot.
Richard

I am a 145 pound 6 foot weakling and discovered how much easier it is to lift using hydraulics when I bought my 3000 with the loader.

Had HF load the lift into the back of my pick up (two boxes), un-boxed it in the truck and worked on carried it into the shop one piece at a time. Was pretty easy even by myself.
 
Correct!

AllisBengineswapAug32004002-vi.jpg

AllisBengineswapAug32004004-vi.jpg
 
I've had mine for 12 years and used the heck out of it with no issues. Had many big truck and tractor engines on it and it certainly never
tipped over on me.
 
(quoted from post at 08:04:53 05/30/17) What other store other than H-F could you even buy one at?

Tractor Supply, Pep Boys, NAPA, to name a few.

Thing is, they all sell the same exact thing just painted a different color and a whole lot more expensive than Harbor Freight.
 

I do not understand the tipping issue at all. Remember the old belt balance toy your granddad whittled out. How can it possibly tip with the load over the frame like it was designed to be used.
 
Mine is used a lot. Bought several years ago. But it is only a 1 ton, I did not need or want the larger 2 ton. Have had no problem with mine. The only thing I did was take off that very short chain with the hook and put on about a 3 foot chain As I usually have to wrap the chain around what I am lifting and I did not want to have to mess with anouther chain. On the tipping if your load is directly in front of you no way, now if you try to lift with the load off the side yes they can tip from just the sideways pull but they are not ment to pull like that.
 
In my job as a golf cart mechanic, I have to hoist a LOT of HEAVY batteries, and my 60-year-old spine just won't take it. One of these HF engine hoists, married to an electric winch that was just laying around, cured the problem. In this case I required the hoist to extend beyond the wheels, as I need to pick batteries off a pallet and drop them into the center of the cart (and vice-versa), but the battery that drives the winch is some six feet behind the forward wheels to balance it. The boom extension is just a piece of 2" box steel, just happened to fit inside the hoist's boom, can't mess with that sort of kharma! This thing gets rolled around for hours a day, several days a week, loaded, and the wheels are still good. Of course I try to hit them with spray white lithium grease once a week, but still, that's excellent.
a162003.jpg
 
My son & I bought the same thing to swap engines in his car. Very handy to have. The next use mine will get will be whenI remove tire/rim from the tractor. ( it isn't loaded.)
 

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