History What to do with “vintage (old?)” engine stand?

I’ve got this old engine stand that was my fathers. It sucks compared to modern stands but it has a cool old vibe to it. It’s a well built homemade job, I don’t think Dad built it tho. It’s been around at least as long as I have (54 yrs). I won’t use it for engine work but it would be cool to display a pretty engine, chevy only. I just don’t have space for that but every time i walk past it in the barn I think it needs to go to a good home. I’ve asked everyone i can think to ask if they will take but no one has.

lower right corner of lower pic

 

I LIKE IT. Wish I was closer, I'd take it in a heartbeat!

 

I love it. I dig old hand made tools and machines and all the sweat and love and material scrounging that went into them, be it something as simple as an old washing machine motor bolted to a bench and fitted with a wire wheel or something more elaborate like an English wheel. Like an old Hot Rod, it's a one of a kind, built before mail order days. Now most people probably have a Harbor Freight engine stand.
I'd hang onto it just for the fact that it was your Dad's. My Dad passed last year and I know the few tools he left me will be left to my Son.

 

I have the same thing. Almost forty years ago my Dad borrowed a homemade engine stand from a friend of his so we could assemble my first flathead engine. We drilled the flathead pattern mounting holes in amongst the dozens of others already on the plate. We put the whole thing together on that stand, and even painted it on there.

Twenty years ago at the friend's estate sale I was able to buy that stand for myself. It's kinda rough, made of castoff steel tube and torch cut plate, with an old 9" housing end and axle for the rotating end. Still has my paint on it. And it will be in my garage until my estate sale.

 

I have built several "display" engines for local museums. All of my efforts to date have been with Corvair engines. I do have a couple of small journal 327 short blocks and it might be fun to build one up and bolt it to your stand. The Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum in Ypsi (Michigan) would probably let me display it there. What do you think?

 

ROAD TRIP!

 

I would gladly donate it for that. I’m located near Chesterton Indiana, easy access from I-94
I’ll even have a copy made of that old pic with two 57 vettes and the stand in my Fathers garage to go with it.

 

My dad had one similar with a large plate with various patterns drilled. I got most of his tools, but my brother had gotten rid of the stand and old floor jack before I had a place for them. Still pisses me off to this day. AA/FA engine and many others had been built on that stand.

 

I’ve got another “vintage”stand that I got from the junkyard for $5. It’s much more user friendly. So that’s one for me to keep.

 

I found an old engine stand in an alley that mounted the engine sideways - but not like the flathead ones. I loaned it out to a friend who has his 392 hemi mounted on it so I don't have a picture of it. Looked like it was commercially built.