Review on 🔧 OTC (927) 10 Ton Push Puller: Heavy-Duty Versatility for Efficient Extraction by Nick Ross

I knew this item was overpriced before I bought it, but I really wanted to buy an American-made pusher (made with materials from around the world!). This is a really simple device - a square steel bar with a hole and two slots, some bolts, nuts, washers and two flat plates. Such a simple tool at this price should really be top notch in quality, fit and finish. Instead, you get a mix of randomly assembled OTC parts. The main propellers came with a dry (forgot the oil) phosphate coating and everything else except for the fan propeller had your typical cheap zinc coating (trivalent I think). The injection screw was oil phosphate. These are the cheap generic covers you find on screws from Home Depot. Without regular maintenance, the entire kit will rust badly. The jacking nut would not thread onto the jacking screw. It looked like there were a few burrs on the threads. I cleaned the threads with a 3/4"-16 tap and actually had to remove quite a bit of material. From a design standpoint there are also some issues. The jacking screw has a standard 3/4"-16 thread. Jacking bolts are usually acme threads to reduce friction and increase durability. The standard thread has a triangular profile and is much more susceptible to damage than Acme's trapezoidal thread. I don't know what OTC was thinking. Actually I know. They thought standard threads were cheaper to manufacture, and they're right. There were only two flat plates in the kit. This transfers the load from the main bolts to the bar. The flat plates mount below or above the bar depending on whether you're doing a push or pull action. If OTC had supplied four flat plates instead of two, the puller would not need to be reassembled when switching from push to pull or vice versa. I suspect at this price point OTC couldn't find a way to include those two extra plates. A case for this instrument would also be nice. I would suggest making your own pusher out of screws from a hardware store (or high-strength stainless steel you can find online) and a piece of slotted and cut sheet steel.