My New Old Walker Floor Jack

[MWitte]

I have been looking for an old Walker 2 ton floor jack locally for years now. I recently expanded my search area, and found a 4 ton unit on ebay that was about a 3 hour drive away. I figured that was close enough, and bought it. I had the Labor Day holiday off, so I had time to make the drive. I had the listing photo printed and laying on the kitchen counter and my brother in law, visiting from MS, looked at it and said he saw one just like it in an antique shop near his home. I was skeptical, but told him to buy it. Monday, I made the 3 hour drive and picked up my 4 ton J-134. Tuesday morning my brother in law texted me fuzzy photos of what looked like a Walker 2 ton floor jack for $75.00. I told him to buy it - Now! He sent me some better photos of it after he got home. It is a No. 882, 2 ton unit. Just exactly what I wanted, and it looks to be in pretty good shape. I have been looking for years to find a Walker, long frame floor jack, and now I own two.

The J-134 does not work, so the plan is to tear down the hydraulic unit and make it work. I am planning to leave the finish as it is, but I am already getting suggestions to paint or powder coat it. My day job has been 7 days a week for a while now, and will likely continue at that pace so I am reluctant to start into a complete restoration right now. One of the attached photos shows it next to your typical cheap orange Chinese floor jack for scale. This thing is big.

I will pick up the No. 882 from my brother in law when we visit for Thanksgiving, so it will be a while before it comes home.

 

[MWitte]

The first thing I did was to add hydraulic fluid and see what the jack would do. It would kind of lift, but the saddle would drop as soon as the handle was raised all of the way. I am guessing this is a check valve problem somewhere. I figured it was time to split the frame and get the hydraulic unit out for dis-assembly. It took a threaded rod through the handle pivot holes, a porta power pushing at the lift arm pivot, and a few hammer smacks on the lift arm pivot shaft. After that, it was easy to get the hydraulic unit out. The next order of business was to make some tools. I needed three different size spanner wrenches. I milled the slots in some flat stock, heated and bent the tabs, and then finish milled the tabs to size after heating and bending them.

The biggest challenge in my mind was the 2 1/2 inch tank nut. I borrowed a socket and tried hammering on it with my 1/2" drive impact, but that would not shake it. I guess it's time to make another wrench. I milled a 2 1/2" hex out of some 1/4 inch plate steel, & welded a 5 foot long piece of pipe to it. I don't have anything sturdy enough in the garage to clamp it to, so I clamped it to the milling machine table. I figured a 1200 pound counter-weight would be a good place to clamp it down. I added a couple pieces of 1/4" threaded rod to keep the wrench from slipping off, and started pushing on the wrench. I am guessing I put at least 100 pounds on the end of that 5 foot wrench handle before it came loose. I was thrilled the homemade wrench worked so easy.

 

[augustus]

Congratulations on the floor jacks! I have the same one, and I love it. Mine needs rebuilt (still) so I'm watching your efforts closely. Well done on the custom tools.

Here's a link to mine.

 

[WWShop]

Awesome story and I am looking forward to more pics! Keep it up!

 

[MWitte]

Augustus - it looks like your jack is in much better condition than mine is. Someone had mine apart at some point in it's life, and it looks like they used a pipe wrench to do it. The hex tank nut had the corners rounded off. All three of the spanner type packing nuts are chewed up. The main ram has some pretty serious surface defects.

I tore the hydraulic unit down and ran all the parts through the parts washer to de-grease them. I measured all the check balls as I took it apart, and it looks like the largest one is too big. Every parts list that I have found says it should be 7/16", but the one I removed was 1/2". Hopefully that was the problem. There is still lots of work to do to get things cleaned up and ready to reassemble.

 

[slimpickins]

Nice find! Have you read thru BB767's "Restored 1930's Auto Shop thread? He restored a Walker floor jack that looks similar to yours ... I should say it looked similar to yours ... before he restored it. Thought you might be interested in looking up that part of his thread or even to PM him as he might have some answers for you ... if you have questions ... or at least you could compare notes!

The Walker jacks story starts around page 47 http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=847687&postcount=925

It's always nice to see old tools restored!!! Good on you for saving these!

Cheers!

 

[Monkey Milk]

Good project, we had one at the shop I use to work at and I hated that thing. Heavy, big and bulky. I prefer using the smaller frame walker 2ton. I rebuilt a walker 2ton small frame that I found with help from hiball. I do miss seeing the big old jack but not using it. LOL

 

[MWitte]

Yes, I read BB767's post some time ago, but recently went through it again.

I am not sure how I will like the big frame 4 ton jack, but I figure if I don't like it, it should not be hard to sell a working jack after I get the 2 ton home.

I got the main ram cleaned up as much as I am going to. It had some bad scoring along it's length, and a small divot in the middle of one of the scored lines. I was really concerned about warping it, but I filled that divot with a small tack weld with the TIG welder. If there was any warping, it was almost un-measurable. Runout at the center of the ram was less than half a thousandth. I did put it in the lathe and turned it down by about .008 inch. That did not completely clean up all of the surface defects, but it is much better than what I started with, and should probably be good enough. I cleaned up the two pump pistons. They had some minor pitting, but both cleaned up fairly well.

 

[augustus]

It certainly has had a rough life! Nice work on the lathe there, definite improvement. I really like mine, with a tight garage you might think it'd be a pain, however, it's pretty handy, I especially like that I can reach to the middle lift point of my car from the side of the vehicle.

 

[MWitte]

The Walker 2 ton jack has come home after an un-expected trip to visit family in MS. The photo shows one side frame of the 4 ton next to the 2 ton. The 2 ton is almost a foot shorter. It will probably be the jack of choice once they are both working.

I got a little time in this week and got the hydraulic unit re-assembled. Hopefully I can get this thing back together soon.

 

[Monkey Milk]

Both long frame, I prefer the short frame. Nice mill!

 

[MWitte]

I finally got the old 4 ton jack back together. I am really going to like the 24 inch lift range. Left the truck jacked up about an inch off the ground for 24 hours and it held with no problem. It did leave a little oil on the floor, but I think it was some that I spilled while filling it. I cleaned it up with some parts washer solvent and left a piece of paper under it for a week with no leaks visible.

It is still pretty ugly. I'm going to have to take it back apart and paint or powder coat it one of these days.

Now it's time to get into the 2 ton jack and make it work!