Appropriately timed discussion. A while back, I bought the Harbor Freight arbor press shown above and thought that would be the perfect solution on the cheap. I had the necessary mods done to the press done by a good machinist-friend (hole drilled into the rack, adding a set screw, machining the bottom piece, etc.), then had to buy some clinchers, anvils and what not. I even had one splaying clincher long-reach tool specially made just for re-securing motor side frames - made by Carl at Hobby Horse. He's a good guy to deal with, and didn't charge two arms and a leg. So John's comment about cost is spot on.
Last night I had to replace a broken spring on an electrocoupler on my 6250. After watching the spring fly away a couple of times, I did finally develop a bit of a technique - finally got all pieces seated, then stuck it in the press and quickly bent the first (black) rivet...then a second. I grabbed the wide reach pliers out of desperation and bent yet another rivet. I went back to the arbor press and this time I really took my time to get everything vertical as CW stated above, and boom, a working coupler!
The problem with the HF press is a lack of precision. A high quality, well machined arbor press will make your job easier and reduce frustration, especially when it is used on relatively delicate items like couplers.
If you choose to go the Harbor Freight route because of cost, I get it! Just be prepared to pay particular attention to getting a good table (the rotating piece with four arms.) The contraption they supply is a crude hunk of metal that has been roughly machined and equipped with a center pin that insures slop will occur and alignment will be affected, and it just isn't up to the task. Oddly enough, the heavy metal shaft (the rack) stays aligned quite nicely - most of my problems are with the base. I will be going back to my machine shop friend and see if we can come up with a better solution.
No matter what you choose to do, you probably can't justify it financially, so just relax and spend a few bucks and enjoy the fun of repair work - I do!
