one of the items we had to leave behind in NV was my 12T hydraulic shop press.
i managed to get the wheel bearings hammered out of my front hubs but i was not thrilled by the prospect of hammering them back in, frozen or not. (i've seen it done, by professionals, i know it's possible, i could probably do it and it'd be fine, but i don't think it's the best way for someone who doesn't do that kind of thing every day ...)

and - at last! - the "local" (Allentown) Harbor Freight is open now ! made a run up there today after verifying on the website the 12T press was $109.

got there, and the 12T is not the $109 shown on the site, it's $125. they'd have honored the $109 website price if i'd brought a printout of the page, so word to the wise - when shopping at Harbor Freight, cruise AND PRINT the website pages for the products you're going to go buy. but there are frequent 'Manager's Specials' where the local price will be -lower- than the website price (not any printed flyer price tho that i've ever seen...). so read those prices, check carefully.

however - the 20T version was "on sale" for $170 - down from its normal $210 and it's -a lot- beefier than the 12T. if it's possible to have a press that's "too big" i'm not sure how - other than this one will definitely require breaking down before moving again unlike the 12T one that i could manhandle solo fully assembled ...

so - i've gotta go re-arrange a buncha stuff in the garage tonight so i can assemble and place the new press and make room for the cars - i still have to do the pedal cluster bushings that i didn't get to this weekend, the brake upgrade, and next weekend's project - chain tensioner rebuild X2. and the last best guess on the arrival of Hurricane Isabelle is sometime Thursday, so i need to make sure i can get the cars inside by then ...

feeling much better about reassembling my front hubs this way ...

I shopped around at our local HF store. I didn't like the quality of the tools. Everything was the bottom of the barrel it seems.

Paul

you do have to shop carefully. obviously most of the hand tools are junk.
i'm sure the air tools won't stand up to professional shop use but i'm a weekender and just don't have the same kind of duty-cycle issues pro's do. OTOH - you can replace quite a few for what a single Snap-On tool will cost, so the bottomline breakeven point is not real clear...

the run-of-the-mill 'cast iron' stuff is what it is. i had the old press in service for more than 10 years, and the jackstands and such work just fine. the quality does seem to be improving - the 20T press is much nicer than the 12T, and this year's 12T is much nicer than the one i bought 10 years ago.

you do have to perform your own incoming inspection and look at everything carefully. unfortunately, this is now true even of the Sears Craftsman tools, and i remember a day when it wasn't ...