Refurbishing Simplex jacks

[Matty F]

Someone here was keen on the old Simplex jacks. These ones are nearly 100 years old and lift up to 7.5 tons. I don't think they are made to take apart easily, and that is not an easy job. It's like some kind of puzzle, and comes apart and goes back together only in a certain order.

Here's one before and after I took it apart and cleaned and greased it and painted it, together with others that I refurbished earlier:

are the parts, over 20 of them: 've never seen any broken or worn parts, so the design is really good. Of course I replaced all the split pins and a couple of other pins.

Getting at this split pin was really tricky. It's hidden behind the spring arrangement, but by holding the spring back with a wire I managed to get the split pin out.

was 100 years of dirt. A good clean and grease and they are good for another 100 years!

[Skipweasel]

To be fair, that's true of most machinery - unless you like your pistons outside your engine.

They're fun, though. I haven't used one for ages, but from time to time they're more handy than a hydraulic jack. Looks like you've had fun.

[Matty F]

But it's usually obvious how to take something apart except for modern things where they hide screws. The Simplex jack has a nameplate that is held on by a rivet that becomes curved when hammered in. It's impossible to pull the rivet out withot breaking it. I've replaced that with a screw. Then the two bearings are pressed in from each side and it needs a thin wedge to start getting them out, then a pin punch. All of the split pins are in such tight places that I needed to cut them in half to remove them. There's about half a down places where a trick is needed to take it apart. That's something I've seen only in modern equipment.

[The Natural Philosopher]

If you have lifetime sealed bearings, there is no need to make provision for disassembly with hand tools.

And more and more stuff has been made this way.

[Skipweasel]

That presupposes that I agree with their definition of "lifetime" - which in many cases I don't.

[John Rumm]

It usually means "until the bearings seize"!

A bit like the floppy disk company that guaranteed "100% error free for life". You then looked at the small print to find the defined the life of a disk as the time before it developed errors.

[Nick]

you are without doubt a very ingenious bloke.

We don't use Simplex jacks but in the tackle store we have an assortment of Duff-Norton 'Barrett' jacks which, I think, work on the same principle as Simplex. These are perhaps of similar age to yours and range in capacity from 0.5t to (I think) a couple of monster 20 tonners. We still use these occasionally when loading rolling stock, barges, air conditioning equipment rooms, large vessels etc. They are great machines but can be lethal in the wrong hands. Thus the elfin safety mob here frown upon them.

A really nice thing is that they work equally well underwater. In my 50 odd years we have never had to repair or replace a single one. After use they are cleaned off and lubricated. Then put back in tackle store.

Also have a few of the more modern hydraulic range up to 5t. Good but not that good.

Nick. UK