Engine-driven engine crane with 4wd

[Soren Frimodt]

Well needed something to lift and move engines and gearboxes with. So banged this together with the parts off of an old cheapass engine crane.

[Soren Frimodt]

Max lift height vs. min lift height

And test lift of V8 engine

[Orgasmic Farmer]

Excellent piece of improvisation. What you really want is a proper crane. We must have seen 20 of these in Morocco ....

[zoltan]

We'd never get away with craning vagrants off the streets here though

[RobotMan]

This is a job I need to do for my 'Mog eventually Soren. It only needs to be near enough to be a 'Mobile Crane' again as per it's logbook. An engine crane might look a little lost on the back of the 'Mog though.

Still, first rate bodging improvisation!

[SiWhite]

Nice work Soren. I'd like to fit a small detachable crane onto my Sankey trailer when I rebuild it this winter.....

Anyone seen one like that?

[David Sparkes]

Nice work Soren. I'd like to fit a small detachable crane onto my Sankey trailer when I rebuild it this winter.....

Anyone seen one like that?

Penny Hydraulics do this sort of thing. A 12 volt motor drives a hydraulic pump which provides the lifting force. A set of Jump Leads terminated in an Anderson Plug would act as a flying connection to an Anderson Socket in the towing vehicle.

http://www.pennyhydraulics.com/

I did see one of their side door Platform Lifts go for £90 secondhand. I wished I'd bid for it, but expected the price to go a lot higher.

HTH

[mickeyw]

Wow Soren! That's a really useful bit of kit.

I have yet to encounter many cheapass engine cranes that'll lift 2 tonnes though. I imagine you could do with stabilisers if you were to lift much more than that V8, or blocks of wood between the axles and chassis

Have you made this so it can slew round?

[Night Train]

Excellent work!

It looks non slewing to me, that can be changed though.

Use a bit of round pipe for the upright and then sleve over it with a larger bore pipe that the lift arm and ram attaches to.

To stop it slewing loosely and out of control add a worm and wheel to the bottom and just wind a handle on the worm to slew. You can get a worm and wheel off an old chain hoist.

You could also get an electro-hydraulic pump and replace the hand pump with it.

You could also add a pair of fold down legs for a greater static lift with more stability.

[simonr]

Alfred - I think you're getting dangerously close to a full blown Hiab there!

There is a lot to be said for a nice simple, lashed together solution like this - mainly that it doesn't take a month to build.

One of my friends (a well known forum member) has built the most beautiful 2 axis hydraulic crane as a 'toy' for his son. I suspect however, once he's too old for playing cranes, it will transplant nicely to the back of a truck as a mini-hiab. I can't wait to have a go!

Si

[Soren Frimodt]

Thanks guys. Slewing was on the table, my idea was using a LR Hub as I have done on my enginestand. But time was short as I had to use it right away, and frankly slewing isn't going to be of much use to me. First of all I can't store anything in the back of the 80" so it doesn't have to be able load it off in the bed. And furthermore because I have fitted it in the back the steering is super light when there's something on the hook, and if I drop the tailgate I can see exactly what I'm doing so I'm able to drop the load exactly where I want it. Another thing I needed it for, is when I take the Mog to the scrapper with old axles, engines, gearboxes and so on, I had a hard time getting the stuff up on the bed, that problem is now solved, and at the scrapper I can push it off of the bed and into the container. My main concern re strength is as you point out the tub giving way. But when I get around to making my 6-point cage I will find a way to tie it into this, then I should be able to use more of capability of the crane.

Actually it is a VERY Cheap crane, I payed about a 100 quid which is the cheapest you can get here in Denmark, atleast its the cheapest I've seen.

[Guest]

Much Like Simon I was considering something similar, when I finaly get the overland trailer done I want to revisit the Sankey and would make a more usefull body, I considered adding something like this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.u...=item335dc461f6

They seem to go for not a lot of money and would make a usefull addition to the fleet.

Jason.

[stravaigin]

That looks like a really handy bit of kit Soren, nice, simple job.

I was thinking of doing something along the lines of and Arctic Trucks type of crane using the winch

can be seen in use here moving fuel drums at about 1 min 30 in ;

[simonr]

I was thinking of doing something along the lines of and Arctic Trucks type of crane using the winch

Paul Wightman used to have something like this on the front of his Series - which on occasion was very useful.

Si

[Night Train]

Good, old fashioned, engineering solutions.

I want to do something similar on my tractor but I also have a mini electrohydraulic crane arm I could use.