has anyone converted an ordinary floor jack or a motorcycle jack to an outdrive jack? Seems like that would be pretty easy?

I converted a trailer Tongue jack into a drive stand/jack. Bought a cheap engine stand from harbor freight for the base, a square tube, drop leg tongue jack, and 6' of 1" x 1 1/2" square steel stock. Total $ spent, $87. not counting welding wire of course.

I will never remove or install a drive without one again. I can remove a drive in 5 minutes, and install one in about the same amount of time....alone.

The result:

looks like this one huh ? lol....the only thing I did different, was to go with two bottom legs so the skeg wouldnt hit anything.

I built one from an engine stand as well. Similar to philm's but mine does not raises up and down. I just raise or lower the trailer tongue to get the right height.

Common homeade applications include buying a motorcycle/quad jack, and rigging up some taller brackets. There have been posts on this before. I built one out of 2x4s years ago that I have on extended loan to another OSO member. I think it's going on 7 years. I'm OK with it since I picked one of these up DIRT cheap from a marina that went out of business:

http://www.yardarm.com/marine_produc...installers.htm

Here is the best thread:

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/g...welding-3.html

Check out these "cadillac" stands made by OSO member Roger 1:

If you don't have the resourses to build your own, I am still building and selling these. I have sold over a hundred units all over the country to boat owners and service centers. Everybody seems to like these jackstands. Here is a link to the add in the classifieds and a picture

http://www.offshoreonly.com/classifi...o20513-en.html

That is where I got my idea. I was going to go with that engine stand, but it was double the price of the one I bought.

BTW, I sized the distances on the stand so that I can have the jack fully down and the skeg is 1/2" from the center leg.

That wasn't from an engine stand...I made that whole setup myself. I used some extra tubing I had left over from another job, and just basically copied a dual leg engine stand. Seems a little more stable. Looks like we both used the same Harbor Freight jack...lol.

Sydways, I had a small shop and servicing drives was a real hassle espesially with extended swim platforms, So I bought one of those jacks you have pictured & Ill never pull a drive without it again. Those things are awesome & with the big wheels they work on gravel too.