Spotted a homemade frame jig in a barn in Vermont, wow

Stopped at a farm auction near Burlington last weekend and saw this old timer's DIY frame jig, all welded from I-beams and bottle jacks. He said he'd pulled 200 cars straight with it over 30 years, never bought a real bench. Made me wonder how many of us are running custom setups instead of the $20k plus machines. Anyone else seen some janky rig that just plain works?

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janac5127d ago

All that "pulled 200 cars straight" stuff is just survivorship bias, you know, the ones that came out wrong went to a real shop or got scrapped. A bottle jack setup can't hold the same tolerances as a proper bench when you're dealing with modern unibody cars, the sheet metal just flexes too much. Honestly, those homemade rigs are fine for old trucks but they're a false economy once you factor in all the time wasted fighting the thing on every other job.