A hydraulic press and pull machine comprising of a frame, cylinder and piston, two threaded studs, hydraulic pump and hose, pulling clamp and a workpiece support was designed, fabricated and evaluated. The machine is manually operated. The maximum shear force, maximum bending moment and maximum displacement of the machine workpiece support were determined as 74.9491N, 16.6335N-m and 4.367e3mm for a simulated load of 1000N. Maximum axial, bending and torsional stresses were also determined as 0.00359, 701998 and 0.00653N/m2 respectively. performance of the developed machine was determined using seven bearings of bore diameters 24, 30, 40, 50, 65, 80 and 100mm respectively, fitted into seven corresponding shafts with shaft deviation of ±0.001mm and dismantled afterwards using three different methods: traditional hammering, the developed manual hydraulic press and pull machine and already existing electrically powered hydraulic press. The results of the experiments showed that traditional hammering is the most time consuming method of mounting and dismounting force fits, followed by the use of the developed press-pull machine while electrically powered hydraulic presses are the fastest.The machine which was fabricated with local materials will reduce the time and stress associated with installation and removal of bearings, and other forms of force fits in machine assemblies. Hence, leading to an overall improvement in the standard of machines/equipment fabricated in Nigeria