Cheap engine stand any good?

I need to pick up an engine stand. The 1000 pound stands at the hammer store are on clearance. Well I hate myself if I buy one of these?

It's worked fine for me. I haven't put any more than 3-400 pounds on it though. 

In reply to EvanB :

680 pound Jaguar's  will cause stands like that to point to the ground.  

I got the even cheaper one. It worked well for a subie, light and short engine.  If inline 4, it might be tippy due to the tree wheel design. I would not trust it with a 8, with the double wheel out front maybe. 

I have the older orange paint version of that stand.  Works fine for 4 cylinders and V8s.  I hung a jeep 258 inline 6 on it and it held, but I didn't like it and was expecting it to fail.  If I use it for another I6 I will add a brace

Needs to hold a first gen Chevy small block, could end up with a big block on it though.

Hot Rod tested it by putting more and more weight on the front end of an engine block (4.3 V6?) and IIRC it took something crazy like 2000 or 3000lb before something broke, and what broke was the mounting arms, not the stand itself.

I've used it, but only for a few Miata engines and a 13b.  Friend of mine had a similar one with a 351W, everything was fine.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Thanks, that's kind of like something you would see on engine masters. Wonder if Frieburger was behind that. 

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

I need to pick up an engine stand. The 1000 pound stands at the hammer store are on clearance. Well I hate myself if I buy one of these?

No idea, but you've heard about their jack stand recall, right?  If I bought one of those there is NFW that I would put more than about 400# on it.  

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Hot Rod tested it by putting more and more weight on the front end of an engine block (4.3 V6?) and IIRC it took something crazy like 2000 or 3000lb before something broke, and what broke was the mounting arms, not the stand itself.

I would certainly hope that it would take that much weight or more to break it.  Something like that should have a factor of safety of AT LEAST 3 or so.  

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

I have the cheaper one with a single swivel wheel & it held the SBC from the Vette. 

Having extensively used three point engine stands, the four wheeledness of that stand is a MAJOR PLUS.  Much much much more stable.

JBinMD said:

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

I need to pick up an engine stand. The 1000 pound stands at the hammer store are on clearance. Well I hate myself if I buy one of these?

No idea, but you've heard about their jack stand recall, right?  If I bought one of those there is NFW that I would put more than about 400# on it.  

It's welded square tube with mounting arms for an engine. Not quite the same as a jack stand with a cast part that didn't have enough engagement. There isn't much to go wrong.

I have a couple and they've held complete engines many times. Often for long periods of time lol.

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

Needs to hold a first gen Chevy small block, could end up with a big block on it though.

A big block weighs about what a V12 does and is just as long. A small block is something like 150 pounds lighter plus about 4 inches shorter. 

I have that one. I've built several engines on it, including a BMW M50 and a Mitsubishi 6G72 V6. No issues.  

EDIT: actually mine just has the single "front wheel" so the one you posted is probably a lot more stable than mine, but otherwise looks identical. 

I've used a variety of these stands to hold a whole bunch of M5x BMW 6 cylinder motors. Works great! 

Pro tip: screw a piece of plywood to the bottom to hold tools/random crap/cement mixing basin as a drain pan.

I have an old "tri-pod" style stand. It has held many I4 and V6 engines, and one V8.  It's bolted together so it breaks down and stores easily. The 4 leg stands are more stable but the engine mounting plates on some of the newer stands  have thinner steel and look weak to me as the plate on my stand is over a 1/2" thick!

I have one of those, and had a couple of older similarly cheap ones which weren't HF.

I totally knocked over an I6 on a three wheel version. I only do four wheel versions now, but none give me worries about strength.

I don't know what I would want out of a nicer stand other than a nice means of rotation with more stops.

You can either support the nose of the block/crank on the stand or weld on a 45^ brace between the horizontal and vertical legs or forget the bolts and weld it up solid.

I think the tripod versions look scary, I sure wouldn't want to use one. 
 

I'm going to pick up one of these before they are cleared out. Now I have to decide whether to buy my own hoist. 

In reply to Ranger50 :

I'd rather it be bolted than welded, myself.    Engine stands are annoying to store when not in use unless you can break them down.  Part of me is also thinking that welded would be weaker because the steel can't flex anymore, and would be more likely to crack.

Besides, it's made of steel much, much stronger than the chassis of a car.  Worrying about the stand collapsing is kind of silly.

I just pitched one similar when one of the rear wheels broke and I almost dumped an engine on the ground.

It was replaced with a HF 2k pound folding stand. While it is several times the price, it's also several times better of a stand. 

A fully dress marine 302 including 150 pounds of marine manifolds was as easy to roll around the shop as a brand new shopping cart.

You can see the old block in the background on the old stand. It's in the trailer to go to the scrap yard. 

I needed another engine stand last week so I bought one of those. I also decided to get a new hoist at the same time. My other hoist is super overbuilt (A Blue Bird) and it's a bear to wrestle with and quite overkill to be honest. I'm getting old and stuff like that wears me out. I did take a little time to add some washers and Loctite all of the hardware when I assembled everything. I'm just particular that way though. I don't tighten bolts or nuts down against painted or powdercoated surfaces without washers to protect the finish. That's the A&P in me talking. In the end it works just fine.

When buying an engine stand, getting one which fit between the legs of your engine hoist is quite a convenience. I've had hoist and stand combos which didn't and it made everything more difficult.