Hello everyone! I haven't posted anything in a while but I wanted to share this latest project with you.

I'm a do-it-yourself kind of guy. So, recently, when my transmission went out on my car, I decided that this time I would rebuild it myself. I also realized that I'm lacking in a few necessary tools to do this kind of work, namely a transmission jack. So, I got to thinking.....and drawing with ViaCAD. And, here's what I came up with.

This is a design for converting a normal two ton floor jack into a handy transmission or accessory jack. I started by reverse engineering a cheap MVP floor jack that I had in my garage and then digitally converting it into a handy jack capable of lifting a slightly lighter load (500lbs, give or take) but with a much wider range of lift. Originally, the floor jack had only about 8" of lifting range. So, I redesigned it to have about 24" of lifting range, more than enough to remove a transmission from a car.

Here's what the original jack looks like:



Another thing I decided to do to simplify things is to recycle an old brake rotor to use for the head of the jack. The 11" rotor provides more than enough square inches required for a stable lift.

ViaCAD Pro wasn't just useful for constructing a 3D model of my idea, but even before I began modeling the actual jack, I started by using some very simple line drawings to work out the geometry challenges. ViaCAD Pro was the perfect tool for this.

Now, this is a very simple model. I did a very quick simple model of the components that I planned to re-use from the original jack, including the pump, the handle, the ram and the frame. I also modeled some swivel castors that I purchased from Harbor Freight. In place of bolts, I just did some quick extrusions of appropriately sized circles.

Here's the result:







I have actually built this jack over the weekend and it turned out great. As soon as I can, I will upload pictures of the actual product. ViaCAD has become one of the most important tools I have!

Hey Zumer, thanks for the reply!

I agree, I was somewhat concerned too. But, I had limited time and materials to use so I tried that first and loaded it to the hilt. It did well, with almost no flex as is. I ended up using some 1-5/8 unistrut instead of the 1" square tubing.

I actually put the jack to use yesterday evening when I removed the transmission from my Toyota T100. It worked very well, but I do see some room for improvement. One thing I overlooked in my design was balance. When the transmission is resting on the jack, the back wheels get very light. So, as soon as I get the chance, I'm going to extend the front wheels another 6" and I have decided to add some more support just to be safe. Also, I will add some latch points for a safety strap or chain.

Here's the jack being used for the first time:



Here's a closeup. Don't look too closely at the welds...I was having fits with my contact tip in the nozzle. When I have finished modding it, I will clean it up and paint it.

That's great creativity and repurposing of parts.

You might want to label your pics and declare you are placing this into the public domain under some convenient license just to make sure it is now duly forced into "prior art" status so no one re-does your work and then patents it and prevents even YOU from doing further work on YOUR work. It would be too expensive to patent unless you could sell 10s of thousands of them.

Not saying the regulars here are going to misappropriate your ingenuity, but any site with creative ideas in it is a harvesting zone for lurkers out only to scarf up ideas and put them into play faster than you since you may lack resources and may not even suspect someone is about to Hail Mary you.

As for the drawing and your calculations, did you use the 3D solids and CGs and Moments facilities in VC/VCP? If not, you may want to do so before you invest in your upgraded lift jack. If you do, you can rotate the pump and moving parts about the center vertical axis and add mass incrementally. Chart it or graph it and then you can determine now much weight is ranging out past or dangerously close to a tipping point when the apparatus is being pushed or towed or taken through a turn. If VCP had some rudimentary movement measurements, that might be possible to calculate for slow, but moved objects like yours. I'm assuming that if you or anyone else build your device, there might be sloped floors somewhere and a non-careful user might find out after tipping their object off to the floor.

The casters/wheels might have some verrrry small (maybe negligible?) amount of compression, which you may or may not want to look at in the event you find it worthwhile to do this as side work. In some home garages or shops you or others might wear down the wheels and it might later factor into safe areas vs tipping points...

If you DO decide to make or sell these, the scary part will be the potential litigious suits risk. If you don't get a lawyer and don't overengineer it to stave off suits and complaints, you may regret selling these. Still, it's cool of you to show what you did and that you did it with VC.

Just some ideas before I forgot them ... not that you haven't already worked these out.

Nice repurposing.