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Home made fork straightener

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Jay81

Riding a '38 Autocycle Deluxe
After aquiring the Firestone Airflyte, I decided I need a fork straightener. Apparently the Little Brutes are hard to find and cost around $200. I didn't feel like waiting/searching or paying that much, so I decided to make my own.
Previously I have tried the @Robertriley method of deck railing, ratchet straps and wood blocks and had good success. I saw @rhenning fork straightener in that thread and decided I wanted to build one similar.

Here's the bike as I got it. As you can see the fork is bent pretty bad.

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I started with an old bumper jack from ebay. Cost me $27.44 including shipping.
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You people that never have to deal with snow, have probably never seen one of these before. It's an old snowblower shoe that I've had laying around for years.
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A little cutting........
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And a little welding
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I used a front axle from a scrap wheel
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Here's a couple "after" pics. It worked great!
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Over all it was a two beer job.
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It can even stand up for storage!
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How much Miller Lite did it take to engineer that thing?

Just the two from start to finish. Knew I was going to use the bumper jack and just had to find something to weld on the end of it.
My first idea wasn't going to work so I looked around the garage and found something else that did.
The only real "engineering" was just figuring that part out so I would have something on the end to brace it against the crank hanger. Other than that it's basically the same concept as a little brute, just set up a little different.
 
$27.44 on eBay? What, no junk yards around there?

There are, but the likelihood of finding a car/truck that's old enough to have this style jack in a junkyard is slim to none. The main place to go for old stuff was Warhoops on 18 1/2 Mile in Sterling Heights. My high school auto shop teacher knew the owners well, and us kids would go there for parts all the time. They had signs up that the public was not allowed in the yard, but when we would mention we were in auto shop they let us go look around and find what we needed. The place was one big muddy mess but we had fun finding our parts and checking out all the cool old stuff they had. But it was sold several years ago. The new owners crushed all the old stuff and paved the whole yard and brought in modern junk.
There's two other junkyards closer to me, and I'm pretty sure the one over here at 12 and Groesbeck did the same thing. There's Parts Galore on 8 mile in Detroit, and last I was there they did have a small "vintage" section. They charge a buck to get in, which isn't terrible I guess but didn't really feel like spending the time to go look and maybe find what I was looking for.
I do frequently go to garage sales, estate sales and sometimes the Armada flea market and considered waiting and looking at those places but decided I wanted it right away. Probably could have gotten it cheaper elsewhere I'm sure, but I figured for under 30 bucks including shipping I could live with it.
You should see what people want for some of these on ebay, I figured they are obsolete and nobody would them, and they would be cheap. I was surprised to see several in the $150 range and I think there was one that was like $800. Those expensive jacks listed the specific make and model that they came from and I realized people must be looking for them for their collector cars, and some folks may be willing to pay big bucks to have the correct jack.
 
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