Sunex 2 Ton 5222 Engine Crane vs Harbor Freight 2 Ton Engine Crane -EricTheCarGuy
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
- Link to Sunex 5222: www.sunextools....
Link to purchase crane: $469.99: www.jbtoolsales...
Harbor Freight Crane: $229.99: www.harborfreig...
I recently pulled the engine from my 1982 Ford Mustang with my new Sunex 2 Ton hoist. Here's the video.
• 1982 Mustang Donor Car...
It was my first time using the tool and I learned a few things about it in the process. I was able to compare my experience with the new hoist with that of the old one. This video covers that comparison.
I like the new hoist. There are a couple of things I miss about the old one, but I don't miss the fact that it's pretty much falling apart after about 4 years of use. I will miss the handle and the fact that the hook was easier to use, but I'm looking forward to the dual pump action and the easy rolling casters on the new Sunex.
Make your own decision about which hoist you'd like to have in your shop.
Check out some of the other tools from Sunex: sunextools.com
Tool reviews posted every other Wednesday.
Camera: Brian Kast
Thanks for watching!
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Due to factors beyond the control of EricTheCarGuy, it cannot guarantee against unauthorized modifications of this information, or improper use of this information. EricTheCarGuy assumes no liability for property damage or injury incurred as a result of any of the information contained in this video. EricTheCarGuy recommends safe practices when working with power tools, automotive lifts, lifting tools, jack stands, electrical equipment, blunt instruments, chemicals, lubricants, or any other tools or equipment seen or implied in this video. Due to factors beyond the control of EricTheCarGuy, no information contained in this video shall create any express or implied warranty or guarantee of any particular result. Any injury, damage or loss that may result from improper use of these tools, equipment, or the information contained in this video is the sole responsibility of the user and not EricTheCarGuy.
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to replace bolts: go to your local farm supply and buy a "hitch pin" like the farmers use with their implements. Hitch pins come in a vareity of lenghts, thickness and hardness to fit everything from your kids tricycle to big 8 wheel drive tractors. i think Orschln is in your area.
I would get the Harbor Freight and change the casters. For the price savings, the replacement casters would fit the budget. I would also get rid of the nut and bold of the arm and get a pin for it.
Great video and thanks for the improvement ideas.
+MontiR Aruba agreed, my grey 1 ton HF unit already has the pin/quick release so i guess they already took that to heart versus Eric's hoist being the older orange version.
+MontiR Aruba They sell the casters at harbor freight too.
+Reddituar the bearings come out 😂
+MontiR Aruba That's exactly what I did with mine. It works great.
+MontiR Aruba Be careful about which casters you buy from HF. Do not under any condition buy casters "Made in India". They are of vastly inferior quality compared to those made in China. I've found that this also holds true for tools in general.
Sounds like the Sunex people and the Harbor Freight people need to all get together and make one perfect engine hoist by taking the best bits off of both of them.
+LMacNeill Or the harbor freight people can watch this video and upgrade theirs a little so I can get the best of both worlds at harbor freight prices :)
Make one perfect engine hoist? Mine isn't a Sunex or Harbor Freight, but very likely built in one of the same factory's since it looks and functions exactly the same as the HF hoist. It is missing the cross bar handles Eric showed on his though. It would still be a long ways from ever being perfect even if it had the best features of the two hoists combined. I've done a few thousand lifts from a couple of hundred lbs to over 50 ton. That experience taught me I better respect any lift that weighs more than what you can move by hand. Knowing that I still bought my hoist because it was cheap and also knew what my maximum weights would be. I also down grade any off shore made lifting equipment by at least half since you can't fully trust the steel, weld penetration, or the piss poor design. Using threaded bolts through the cross holes and with thinner walled square tubing put's those grade 5? or less bolts in a serious shear condition. The thread depth also reduces the bolts cross sections strength even more. That's simple physics for what happens and not just my opinion.
These hoist's may or may not be safe at there rated 2 ton load, but if I own something expensive hanging off it's hook then I have to be 100% lucky during every single lift. It isn't unknown for even high grade steel to have inclusions in the metal never mind the cheapest and lowest grade of steel possible these hoists have. Without access to a proper X ray machine used to check steel and welds it's impossible to ever be sure they can handle the full load until you do it. Rolling them around with a load then puts even more stress on the parts. One single failure could be expensive and maybe if your real unlucky needing some major medical treatment. But there overall design is still faulty because they built them down to a price point. They could and should have added some 1/2" plate welded to either side of most of the cross holes to fish plate and spread the high point loads over a much larger area. The inner tubing should have had heavy wall pipe across the full width of the tubing and welded to both sides to do the same thing. If I had a welder I'd do exactly that. For myself the heaviest mine will ever lift might be around 600 lbs so I bought the 2 ton instead of a 1 ton. For the price I'd say these hoists are barely ok, but I sure don't blindly trust anything I'm buying at the lowest price no matter what the load limit on it say's. :-)
Cantilevered caster mounts to the top edge of the lower frame for 6 swivel casters with 5 inch frame clearance and the dual pump ram from the Sunex with 3 pins - 2 for the folding lower arms and one for the crane arm. Alternatively, you can also replace the hydraulic ram with a hybrid manual, air ram. Washers and nylon lock washers for all bolts.
As someone who's fought to get the HF hoist under vehicles & equipment, and the slow, and my leaking cylinder, I love your Sunnex & would pay the difference today!
I have the Orange Harbor Freight 2-ton engine hoist. Its about fifteen years old, and have pulled quite a few engines with it, as well as lifting heavy objects from the bed of my truck. I do take very good care of it. I have not had any problems with the bearings going bad on the casters. Also mine has the hook like what is on your Sunex engine hoist. I like the fact that I can roll mine sideways as I can get into some tight places in my garage, if I have to. I have been very pleased with its performance. Also you can buy those pins at any farm tractor store, to replace to bolt and nut.
Would recommend me buying the orange one ? I found a good use one
I have an Allied engine hoist made in 1990 it's a breakdown style so it can be completely disassembled. And my God is it heavy. I upgraded it with a Pneumatic Harbor Freight hoist which is freaking awesome when you're working by yourself.
Super unbiased review. I really appreciate it as do most TH-cam viewers. I'm restoring a 1947 8n tracot engine and will definitely buy the harbor freight. Now... if I was restoring a chevelle in a garage with a nice floor I'd go sunex
When you consider that they are likely made on opposite sides of the same factory in China..... The earlier Sunex model is a dead ringer for the HF unit,The only difference is the casters. The pins are easy to find at a tractor supply store.
Sir, On my harbor freight engine crane, I switched the bolt out, on the boom, with a 5/8 inch hitch pin.
I was expecting a gladiator style fight to the death between the two engine cranes.....
But this is even better. Great video Eric!
i have the harbor freight one and am perfectly happy with it
Do you recommend me buying it
@depdark1 absolutely
I remember when you had that HF engine crane when you were in that tiny cave of a shop and remember you had trouble rolling it around because there was a lip in the concrete. It also should be noted that HF engine crane is now what, 6 or 7 years old?
They may have changed the design by now. Hopefully the guys at Sunex will see your video review and make those design changes especially with the assembly instructions.
Eric you hit upon some very important concerns, thanks for taking the time to do such a thorough review.
I have the Harbor Freight one, there's no need to cut the chain. I can have mine in the fist link from the hook and just leave the chain dangling. No biggie. I feel you on those casters. Man, they can be a pain in the butt!
Thanks for the comparison. Replacing the Harbor Freight’s casters with heavy duty steel ones, and replacing the boom bolts with locking pins, would seem to be cheaper than buying the Sunex, and Harbor Freight probably sells those items. For the small shop mechanic, the Harbor Freight with its moving handle seems to be a better value overall. Thanks again for the video.
3 years later and this is still a good video, thanks. Brought up some issues that I had not thought of that will be important for my use. Right now some sales going one and it looks like I can find the Sunex for about 2.5x the price of the Harbor Freight unit. With the difference in cost, I'm going to investigate what can be done to improve the weaknesses of the Harbor Freight unit before I purchase.
I can live with the slower hydraulic cylinder.
The quick release pins vs. bolts is an easy fix if it gets annoying.
For my application I am worried about the height of the legs. 7.5" is too tall by about an inch. Looks like they both use 4" wheels. Trying to find out the bolt pattern of the stock casters, and see about some better, low profile units (in my case I'm not worried about rolling over seams and such so smaller wheels should be fine). The worst case is having to use a floor jack to create space when needing to use the hoist. A more involved mod to the HF unit would be to put plates over the top of the legs and mount the casters to those, similar to the way the Sunex unit is for the rear wheels. But that's a lot of effort when there are other ways to work around it.
I'm looking at a chain swivel or swivel hook that would allow a little more height than stock but keep some of the flexibility.
I installed a trolley and pulley system on an existing 8" I beam in the celling that seems to work great. It was the best tool I've invested in by far..
Great review Eric. A set of torches and a welder, you could have the ultimate Engine lift there..
My dealership has spent thousand of dollars on engine cranes and I still fall back to my old reliable “Horrible Freight” crane.
I did upgrade the casters and hook to a spinner from Northern Tools. Upgraded the removable hinder bolts to tow hit pins from TSC. Upgraded the bottle jack to pneumatic for $100.
So I bought a crane for $175 and dumped anther $200 into it for upgrades. Mainly because HarborFreight is one of the few cranes that have casters on the front and rear. I hate fixed casters in the front. Four Spinners make it easier to maneuver the crane with a heavy load. Especially when you have to pull and engine and pivot the crane 90* because there a wall behind you.
Great video Eric. Looking at getting one of these and always good to see a comparison like this. Hello from the future.
For the difference in price you could swap in a pneumatic/hydraulic cylinder as well as upgrade the casters and have $ to spare. It's like $80 for the new hydraulic (which is a direct drop-in). And you don't even need new casters. If you want it like the Sunex, just cut the bottom side of the square pipe and put an axle through the sides with the wheel suspended in the middle. Personally I'd cut the bottom and both sides off, weld them to the underside of the top side for reinforcement and bolt the casters to it. That way you retain the range of movement while still reducing the height. Though that will be harder to start moving as you've seen, due to the need to turn the casters first. But either way, the Harbor Freight one isn't perfect right out of the box - but if you don't mind putting in a little work, it's not hard to make the case for it being the best bang for your buck. Which is the case for a good amount of their products nowadays
In Australia our equivalent of harbor freight, supercheap auto, sells a very similar crane to the harbor freight unit. The two big down sides to the supercheap ones are: the middle wheels don't swivel and they don't come with a handle on the back (a massive pain to move in tight spaces). They do however come with a pin system for adjusting where the boom sits. I have considered changing my pump to an air assist pump, as it takes soooo long to pump the boom up.
I always use washers on anything like that to keep the paint from chipping off like that. Washers usually have a sharper edged side and an more rounded edge side. Put the rounded side against the paint. YMMV but this has worked well for me.
I just got the new 2ton hf houst to do my 07 mountaineers 4.0. damn timing...
Although they will not be sending you a commission check, you just made a sale for Harbor Freight! Thanks for the review.
Tractor Supply has the pins you want by the thousands.Also, neither unit works off concrete worth a damn, and since I do not have a concrete floor, I would have too put 6" or 8" wheels to use either one. Thanks for the review.
I bought a duralast instead,,,224 dollars,,, more then happy with mine,,,and I went to tractor supply and replaced boom extension with a pin,,,you really have to miss the front casters not being able to turn,,that was a must for me.
Big *Advantage* in the Sunex is the low chassis for getting under low cross members and A-arms. *Disadvantage* wider spread wont fit between wheels of narrow width vehicles. Also the drop hook box takes away 3-4 of precious lifting height.
I've wanted to drop the rails on my HF hoist closer to the floor from day one. The reason the HF casters are difficult is they're all swivel casters
On Amazon's site they have a picture of the Sunex assembled like their instructions. But I agree with Eric's assembly of the unit.
The design of the handles which make the unit more easy to maneuver has been used since time immemorial on Chinese push wood planes. An excellent design feature that they haven't copied from someone else.
we had to replace the hydraulic ram on our hoist and we got a replacement from harbor freight that is powered by air and is really nice.
Swap the pin on one of the rear leg pivot with the boom bolt, you could use bolts on both sides and have an extra pin to use for the Sunex hook bolt
In summary. Since the bolts on the HF could be replaced with pins and the casters replaced the real advantages of the Sunex are.
1. Lower leg profile.
2. Dual pump hydraulics.
And the HF has
1. Better lateral movement
2. Moving handle.
Glad I saw this video. Was looking at the harbor freight engine hoist and I didn't realize that you have to slide the lift bar back for certain weight capacities. I was thinking it would lift the full 2 ton at the maximum extension. I was going to lift an SA200 that weight about 1300 lbs.
In regards to the pin vs bolt issue. It would be relatively inexpensive to go to the hardware store and pick up a couple of those half inch pins to replace the bolts with.
Fair comparison, I don't mind the castor wheels on my HF yet. But I would really like the dual action hydraulic pump lever. Thanks for the video
Those casters appear to be the same ones sold individually at HF. If true, they are rated for 300lb each x 6 = 1800 lbs. Less than the heaviest capacity of the lift. They might be good enough to support a static load, but pushing a 2 ton load around the shop and it's not surprising that those casters will fall apart.
This is a newer version of the old Harbor freight design. The old one has a feature not found on the new one and impossible on the Sunex. On the old one the casters were not attached to the frame. The casters were attached to telescopic sliders that slide into the frame. The Sunex casters block the square tubes so this wouldn't be possible.I use those sliders all the time because it allows you to increase the footprint and therefore balance of something you are pulling that is not directly below the hook.I use this for moving very large rocks frequently.
The sun X1 is really nice the only thing I don't like about it is you can't turn the front side to side make the Harbor Freight one but the Harbor Freight one bearings Caster is always falling out nice job man
Definitely the harbor freight model. The only advantage of the Sunex to me that is worth while is the height off the ground. Everything else you can easily modify the HF version.
I would get the harbor freight one and change the casters for better quality, they are pretty much the same design.
Very nice review. Just got my HF a couple days ago and put it together today. It's interesting that you point out that the HF chain takes it down a couple of inches. For my use that's actually what I need.
Eric, why not change the bolt for the boom and pin for the hook around? Set the boom on the 1 and 1/2 ton or whatever weight point and put in the bolt. And put the pin on the hook end. That way you all you have to do is remove the pin, hook up the engine, put the hook back up to the boom and then reinsert the pin.
Great review, I have much more confidence in the Harbor Freight unit. Thanks!
You could swap the pivot pin from one of the legs on the HF-the rear ones that aren't normally removed when folding it-for the boom adjustment bolt and have the pin feature.
Checkmate Sunex.
Great comparison. This literally the 2nd video of yours I've seen. The one thing I didn't gel with, is you kept saying the bearings keep coming out of the HF picker. You also say you've had it for years. Which makes some sense. Lots of easy mods you can do to the HF unit to make it work for cheaper than the Sunex. Thanks for the info sir.
From the sounds of your comparison, the H.F. would be just as good or better than the other hoist with some upgraded casters, a few pins instead of bolts and a double pump piston. That's a lot cheaper to swap than buying a different crane.
Harbor Freight stuff is notorious for crappy casters. Their 'us general' brand tool box is a tremendous value for $329... except the casters. Half the reviews on the site specify this and even provide a link to order better ones from another site. You could probably upgrade those pretty easily. (Not part of this tool review, obviously. But hey, if you ever run out of ideas...... heh) Thanks for another cool video!
That's a NEW HF hoist lol...I have that is 25 years old... it's a neat comparison but the average person pulls a motor not very often so.... the HF hoist would be a better choice.
Sweet, future welding handle on the sunex engine hoist. By the way you could buy a pin for the hook to replace the bolt set up at an agriculture store or fabricate your own by getting a bolt that's around the same diameter possibly grind the thread on the bolt for a smooth surface and then drill a hole for a pin. This would be a nice little video lol.
But that would burn the precious paint. - If he is crying about the bolts scratching the paint he would have a frigging cow if he welded anything on it. Depending on his skill that part of the boom is a stressed member. I wouldn't trust him to so it.
I have the Harbor Freight, I wish mine had the Low clearance as the Sunex 2 because when lifting objects off the bed of my Ranger-the shock bolts lined right up to the casters on the lift and became a pain to find just the right spot to make it work!
Great review Eric. Clear succinct communications.
go to the towing section at the parts store and get some tow pins as quick disconnects, they work great for what your doing and will obviously handle upwards of 15000 pounds
Very nice review. I'm going with harbor freight. For doing something once or twice a year you cannot beat the price. Also I would think I would buy or make a pin like the one in the Sunex. Great idea. Great comparison video. Thanks!
Yeah, the extra low profile of the sunnex is nice, but it's very annoying that you can't move the front of it around while trying to position - you typically want as much movement as possible when trying to wiggle it in or out. Also, the hook of the sunnex is very restrictive, as you pointed out.
I, as others said, get the HF, wait until the bearings wear out (they may not for us mere mortals, as we're likely to do a lot less engine swaps than you!) and then replace them with good casters.
Nice job.....good comparison video! Thanks!
I have an older big red with the fixed out rigger castors and some times I really wish it moved side to side. But I use mine for mainly moving heave machines
A lil wd40 on the wheel bearing on the HF and it should roll smooth or take accessories from the S and put it on the HF .. bam ..perfect crane!
Very helpful, especially the leg clearance height as I need to get under a mill and a lathe.
Does either have a longer boom/arm? For those of us with RWD cars, how much length you have from the front bumper is a big deal. As for casters, just push the car from the hoist! ;) ...and get yerself a load leveler! Sooo much easier to get an engine back in.
Honestly for the price of the Harbor Freight 2 ton, you could upgrade the casters, buy that fancy swivel hook and those easy slide pins, and if you get the 2 ton when they're on sale for $180 you could even buy TWO of them and still be under the price of the Sunex. The only thing I could see the Sunex being better is if you work on a lot of low profile cars and do engine swaps frequently, but even then you could have the lowest car drive on some 2x6's and then be able to use the harbor freight, so is it really worth almost 500 dollars?
My unit is made by Torin, looks just like HF but in different colour. It was worth $180 I paid and castors still work well (but I don't use the it as often as I like)
Take the harbor freight lift, put a better set of casters on it, put on the dual piston and replace the 'lift bolt' or whatever with a pin, I think that would make it one awesome engine lift. Of course with the chain modification as well. Perhaps take two and make one.
You can get replacement parts for all harbor freight products, like casters, and no shipping shipping cost
Fixed castors work a lot better on sloping or uneven floor. Makes it a lot easier to control.
Great review. Perhaps you could contact Sunnex and get another pin and just use that on the front. The holes look to be the same, just get a "replacement" pin and use it on the front instead.
+DJDevon3 or simply get a hitch pin from harbor freight or another website and a hitch clip. no sense in going through sunnex and possibly paying 10 bucks for a new one
I wouldn't trust the metal in a harbor freight hitchpin to hold up my pants let alone an engine. :P Good point though.
Well. cant assume anything about the metal until it's been tested. not to mention. harbor freight's suppliers must get their supplies somewhere, like hitch pins and hardware, who's to say other companies don't also get the same stock, put it under a different name, and sell it for more? "cough" sunnex? wouldn't doubt it either. companies want to make as much profit as they can, they won't usually overengineer something that's already been engineered to work just fine. that's why the sunnex one looks so similar to the harbor freight one, and most likely not worth the extra 300 bucks
not worth the $300 premium over HF.
unless you have a low ground clearance car and the harbor freight one wont fit under.
@@darkshadowsx5949 use a low profile floor jack to lift your car just enough
Put the car wheels on a couple of 2x6, you are goiing to need to get under it anyways.
@@darkshadowsx5949 I'd love to see a scenario where you manage to pull an engine without jacking the car up first.
great video you can get pin and bolt for quick release for 15 bucks you can also replace cater for like 50 bucks i would get the harbor freight for the occainal week end warrior
i took the bars off my mom's mountain bike and welded em on the sunex. worked awesome, but she was pissed af
Thanks for the comparison and heads up on some modifications necessary. Appreciate your time for those of us on a tight budget.
So, it was a lot easier and cheaper to modify the previous in a few details, I did that mine, got new casters, piston and welded the handle, also modified the hook, and you can change bolts for pins.
So... all Harbor Freight, has to do is offer alternate adjustments that may transform the hoist. Seems to me that other than the level of castors, and with better install direction, a lot can be changed. Go Harbor Freight Tools!!!💯🖖🏾👍🏾
Eric, I got my assembled and I can say for 100% sure the directions work as written. Did you tighten things up as you went possibly too much? I left mine very loose and everything went together great however, had I tightened things I believe I would have had issues.
Same with my new jets engine stand many had issues and it was from not leaving everything loose until the end.
what features you like with the sunex can be modified to the h/f hoist. and there go the same can be done to the sunex. but at what cost. and being a mechanic, i always keep a 110 volt mig welder and portaband near by.. ergo; my pick is h/f. also that double pump ram. i like my rest time, when i can get it.
@EricTheCarGuy Have you considered just replacing the boom hook bolt with a trailer hitch pin on the Sunex? That would be a simple fast mod that would get you what you're looking for as far as a quicker way to remove/replace the hook.
Hi Eric very well explained. I want to know which one can pull a foot of diameter stump thanks for the review
The Roll Test; The Sunex sounded heavy but smooth - The Harbor Freight sounded light and rough...
When it comes to tools, you can hear the quality...
Like you said the Sunex is about $300 more expensive than the Harbor Freight so guys like me on a budget are probably going to have to deal with the junk casters on the harbor model. If I were going to use it more often I would probably go with the Sunex.
You could drill a small hole through the end of the bolt and use a cotter pin instead of the nut that would make it quicker to change the boom length on the Harbor Freight crane. I'd say with that upgrade and a new set of casters it would still cost less than the other and be better
The guy doesn't look like he would be capable of cross drilling a bolt. Gloves to do a review? Give me a break.
Eric I seem to be one of few but preferred the sunex with the video and actually just ordered one today. I was actually going to buy a 3 ton lift one amazon for 639 but didn't like that it didn't fold away. I wanted a big one due to pulling a 427 big block from a 68 corvette once and had to let the legs out on the one we was using due to the long nose.
I think the sunex will out perform the big bulky one though I will just need to go in from the side in that condition next time as the sunex doesn't have extendable legs. Thanks for the great review.
I find it really fricking odd that I also had the old 5210 sunex back about 1998,anyway I called sunex about a hydraulic rebuild kit cause mine leaked when I got it new but they didn’t recognize their own fricking part number not did they have a rebuild kit.can you imagine brilliant people like that.I welled the bar and am going set it up(cut & weld) so it folds up into a corner.over all I love mine old or not.
i like the harbour fright hoist, but i don't like the bearings falling on the ground,
you can buy a high quality wheels for it 👍🏻
harbor freight have redesigned there engine crane i had mines a year now . i removed and put a engine in a 2004 chevy class 2.2 i done a 2.4 altima engine and transmisson and a 4.3 engine in a blazer to name a few . mines came with the pin to change the boom lift settings. mines is also silver in color . and does not have the bars on the back like yours
Your biggest complaint seemed to be the casters, but you're comparing 4 year old casters to new casters! If you're a mechanic I would think you could replace casters.
Agreed, lets see how the other one is in 4 years after working all that time.
Sunex for me, easier to handle and low profile. Greetings from Aruba. Keep those hitec videos coming.
Just seeing this and might have been mentioned a long time ago but, you're oversight of cutting the chain might have cost you... You can readjust the length by keeping it there, for them hard to reach places.
besides the crappy casers on the HF lift, to me there are only 2 significant differences. 1 being the dual piston pump, and the other is the steel used by both. the sunex is using more of a rectangular box steel for its legs and boom. the HF is square box steel. id prefer the rectangular tube for the added strength it offers over square. as far as the casters go, they sell better casters elsewhere and even though it makes the lift taller overall I'll give up a few inches of clearance just so I can push and pull sideways with it. sunex dropped the ball by not even using swivel caster in the middle for easy maneuvering when folded for storage. pins are a lot easier than bolts and im sure HF sells them as well. but if not im also confident that any mechanic with a engine lift can also figure out how to drill a hole sideways thru a bolt and make his or her own pins. the hooks are no biggie for me either. I prefer and use the same setup on my lift as Eric has on his HF lift with 1 exception, I have a swivel hook attached to my chain. it was something I found and had laying around for yrs and its heavy. yes it hangs down a bit lower than both of these but I get the best of both worlds with it too. I really like that dual piston pump. so muchso I am looking for 1 to upgrade my HF lift.
FYI you can use a tow receiver pin on either one.
Great video and great details, since you described everything so well, I enjoy all your how to’s 👍🏼 only thing I can say now is Your camera person is should have told you, you had black marks on your face. They can’t say they didn’t notice other then that great stuff
So easy for the big work,like pulling out with a 4D56 engine.
Casters & low profile sells me. You can easily weld or bolt on a handle. The pump/ram is much better also.
I have a Duralast engine hoist and a harbor freight engine stand. I honestly like my stand buy it could be better. I love my hoist but again it could also be better. The thing is I don't pull engines every week so the shortcomings they have are negligible. I think I'm just gonna save for a versatile set of handtools and then move onto getting a nice, chunky impact. Hopefully those will make enough money so I can get my hands on a boss ass welder and THEN...the real fun begins :D
Really looks like 50\50 to me other then in fit'n'finish. nothing wrong with having nice tools, esp if you use em a lot, nothing wrong with having a tool that functions almost identially, but is rough around the edges (and half the price)
Personally if i had both of these, i'm merge em and get the best of both (the Cadillac of engine hoist's) mostly sunnex, but with HB's handle, and possibly boom, depending on how you wanna do it. Keep the quick pin's, but get another one for the top. If you really wanna go all out, i'd take the swivel off the senex, but put it on 1-2 links of chain. The big benefit to having a length of chain is ease of hookup, but also the ability to lower the engine relative to the boom. Sometimes the boom get's in the way of the engine making extraction a little more difficult, or maybe that's just cause I was lifting the engine with the tranny+t-case still attached out of a lifted XJ.
Just buy both and use the best parts from each one ;-) I bought a HF one years ago with the intention of changing out my engine, sold the car before I could use it. meh, someday I might use it to... my mind just went to a dark place, sorry. Great video review dude.
byt the HF one and upgrade the casters. and change the boom extension bolt to a 2dollar pin or make one from a bolt and drill a hole for a cotter pin.
Eric I noticed when you folded up the rig it had a pull out pin on the bottom to lift the legs up . couldn't you just swap one of those for the bolt up on the hook? I imagine in a shop your size you wouldn't fold it up often so when you do the spanner work would be better and more efficient when you do on a few times. rather than every time you used it to hook an engine up ?
The harbor freight unit , that nut and bolt can be replaced with a pin for a trailer draw hitch as I suspect so can the bolt of the hook unit of the other unit .
On the Sunex, switch the boom adjustment pin and the engine hook bolt. Or just buy another pin.
I wonder if improved casters, pins, and other modifications cost more or less than the price difference.
Apply motorkote to casters, they will move surprisingly easier
Now, i'm not sure if the metal on the Sunex is thicker gauge, which means the square tubing doesn't have to be as big. or the Harbor Freight tubing is larger, but with a thinner gauge metal. but it seems to me the harbor freight one is built more tough. the tubing is larger. sure the casters may be worn. but as you said slap some good casters on there and it'll be fine. the handle, ability to move left and right. the tubing size, everything just seems more worth it with the harbor freight one. at least everything that matters, the double pump jack is however a good feature. but not worth it alone when you take into account the price of the harbor freight one, and how much more worthwhile features you get it with it.