Running the crane arm out that far I would want to make 2 suggestions. 1. I would replace the part of the arm that has the chain mounted to it for a longer one so that more of that tubing is sleeved deeper into the outer tube. 2. I would consider welding about a 1/4 inch plate steel down the sides of the external tube to add more structure. All in all the mod you did in this video does look pretty awesome. I have seen so many people complain that they can't fit their engine stand in between the legs of their cherry picker and then when they go find a picker with a wider stance it wont fit between the wheels of their car. Great Resolution!
I modify all my cherry pickers. They're just box tubing after all. I weld fixed stub axles then install solid front wheels (from farm equipment so far but next one will get round tubes so I can slide in round shank scaffolding casters which pivot, lock and have wheel brakes, about $150 a set new which is cheap for how awesome they are especially compared to more awkward industrial bolt-on casters). I weld old rear spindles from scrapped front wheel drive cars after gutting them but trailer spindles would be fine (I get the car parts cheap from salvage of course) so the rear gets car tires. This lets me easily R&R big block gassers with transmission attached in an sand or dirt yard. Because the car wheel setup width is so stable I can easily pull a loaded picker forward away from the vehicle being worked on with my truck. I also use and love the cheap small 12V Harbor Freight electric winches and use one as a "tugger" bolted to a hunk of channel with a leaf spring U-bolt welded to it for anchoring cables and chains. My bad back means I do everything by rigging which is surprisingly efficient from drivetrain pulls to moving machine tools and steel. I power mine from my battery jump pack or via jumper cables. I have much heavier Ramsey worm drive industrial winches but the little portable is ideal for pulling small car engines, tugging and more. I collect discarded cherry pickers with bad hydraulic cylinders, extend the piston rod, slide a piece of pipe over that then reinstall the boom pin so the boom is always at full height. I weld two plates to the end of the boom and run a bolt through an iron or steel pulley. That lets me use my industrial comealongs hooked to the low end of the boom to reach deep into any engine bays. F-16 gun cranes used to R&R their 20mm cannon are similarly simple and where I got the idea. I don't make any of it pretty, just overkill strong since I leave these outdoors for decades. I put car wheel spindles on my "outdoor" engine stand bases too and extend the tongues so I can tow them (slowly!) on gravel. I despise small casters even on concrete so those get harvested or discarded. Feel free to experiment with steel! You can always cut off what you don't like then weld something different. I use Harbor Freight engine stands for all sorts of tasks by modding the heads and every motorcycle engine I pull gets one. Second getting a used patient lift! I have two and want a bariatric. They have non-marring casters and adjustable width so they can fit through a standard doorway. They're nice for placing transmissions and small engines on teardown tables (make one, you won't be sorry). I also collect steel industrial carts from business auctions and I don't mean sheet metal but the custom kind welded from heavier stock by local shops which makes them strong, versatile and easy to modify. They go dirt cheap. Ditto steel "U-boat dollie/carts" used in grocery stores to move frozen foods. I pull the axle bolts from the midships wheels so I can push them in any direction and add shelves to most of mine. If you put time and thought into "material handling" like industry does you can do it cheap and have a much more effective shop as a hobbiest or pro. I'm retired with a bad back but move all sorts of heavy things manually (including forty foot High Cube shipping containers by manual winching on pipe rollers when the delivery Landoll wouldn't clear my power lines). So can you!
I just replaced the stock chain with a swivel and new hook and then you can rotate the motor 180 and put it on the stand from behind. This allows the cherry picker to spoon the engine stand.
I've modified mine heavily. The front legs did not fold up originally, they do now. I added a fold down tray on the back for ballast (I use buckets filled with concrete) for those times when you need the boom out further than the load. I also welded on a handle to the back to make maneuvering it easier.
A friend did a similar thing with a bariatric patient lift which is basically just a medical version of an engine hoist. He got the legs out so any engine stand no matter how wide will fit and they still fit between the tires of all but little bitty cars.
I like the modified legs, I have square base engine stands and they are a pain to load and unload. I'll probably do something similar. One thing you should consider to make life easier on your lifting arm is use a hitch pin like you would use on a trailer hitch, way faster adjustments. On one of my square base engine stands I modified it to be smaller to fit inside the larger stand and also so the engine sits closer to the ground. This makes for a very stable setup but also less storage space taken up.
I’ve always wanted to mod mine but haven’t yet. The biggest thing o learned was from Mike Finnegan. Harbor freight sells a pneumatic cylinder that bolts right into most cherry pickers. The one he had had both the pneumatic and manual in it so it wasn’t useless if you didn’t have air but is awesome if you do have air.
I bought the smaller cherry picker from Harbor Freight. The only difference is the lifting arm was a bit shorter. The framing was the same. I did a modification to the lifting arm where the chain hook reaches the wheels on the end there. I made a video on my channel you can check out. You can lift the whole 1000 lbs all the way out on the end where the wheels are. It's strong enough to lift a tank. LOL. When you make supports for the front of the engine, make the supports to screw into the oil pan rail bolt holes. 2 on each side. That is how the dedicated engine run stands do it. You then can bolt up any engine to it without making dedicated supports. Using the oil pan rails is a more universal setup.
Love this mod, I assume the cherry picker will still slide under the vehicle for installation. I want to mod mine to be taller with a I beam extension. Then put a hoist trolly setup to be able to install engine in vehicle without having to move cherry picker on those last few inches. Just move the trolly back and forth while also being able to hoist at engine rather than having to go pump the cherry picker. Sounds good in my head but not sure, would be cool if it worked.
With the front legs level with the rear, why not cut the front legs on an angel so you could weld the new metal to the rear legs and then weld them to the cut-off part of the front as reinforcement and have the legs go straight forward from the rear. The hoist would end up with a wider and heavier weight lemit? 😊
The only thing I think I'd do differently is to add a full length piece of square tube inside the adjustable beam on top and just re-drill the adjustment holes once that is welded in place. That should at least eliminate the chance of the beam bending at the end of the main lifting beam the ram attaches to. That way you can extend it as far as you want as long as it doesn't start picking up the rear of the crane itself. I think the extensions on the fold up legs you added was a excellent idea as well and something I intend to do on my Pittsburgh 2 ton crane too sense I do allot of big block work and have to reach way out over my trailer sides to pick up stuff quite often . That should really help when I need to lift things off a trailer when the arm needs to be at pretty much full extension so you can reach the center of the trailer better . Ya , both will add more weight but then again I've never been accused of under building anything before and a point my friends often tease me about !
@@gordonsgarage1845 I was only at Ft Campbell for training. Then was in Nam from 70 _72 with the 2/17 on an air assault team mostly in military region 1 up by the DMZ and operated in the Ahsu Valley primarily from Camp Eagle and a few firebase . I'm setting up a new hot rod garage at my new homestead to keep my 71 Riviera and 83 C-10 Lowrider in at the moment and am always looking around for new ideas to make things work better and that crane mod is a good one for sure. I've been retired since 06 and just dub off now playing around with my hot rods ,working on my woodlot and just having fun nowadays. Semper Fi brother,,,,,,,
You should video your builds or create a slide show of your work in the shop and post it on your channel. Both are awesome cars.i learn a lot from other RUclips videos.
Running the crane arm out that far I would want to make 2 suggestions. 1. I would replace the part of the arm that has the chain mounted to it for a longer one so that more of that tubing is sleeved deeper into the outer tube. 2. I would consider welding about a 1/4 inch plate steel down the sides of the external tube to add more structure.
All in all the mod you did in this video does look pretty awesome. I have seen so many people complain that they can't fit their engine stand in between the legs of their cherry picker and then when they go find a picker with a wider stance it wont fit between the wheels of their car. Great Resolution!
I modify all my cherry pickers. They're just box tubing after all. I weld fixed stub axles then install solid front wheels (from farm equipment so far but next one will get round tubes so I can slide in round shank scaffolding casters which pivot, lock and have wheel brakes, about $150 a set new which is cheap for how awesome they are especially compared to more awkward industrial bolt-on casters). I weld old rear spindles from scrapped front wheel drive cars after gutting them but trailer spindles would be fine (I get the car parts cheap from salvage of course) so the rear gets car tires. This lets me easily R&R big block gassers with transmission attached in an sand or dirt yard. Because the car wheel setup width is so stable I can easily pull a loaded picker forward away from the vehicle being worked on with my truck.
I also use and love the cheap small 12V Harbor Freight electric winches and use one as a "tugger" bolted to a hunk of channel with a leaf spring U-bolt welded to it for anchoring cables and chains.
My bad back means I do everything by rigging which is surprisingly efficient from drivetrain pulls to moving machine tools and steel. I power mine from my battery jump pack or via jumper cables. I have much heavier Ramsey worm drive industrial winches but the little portable is ideal for pulling small car engines, tugging and more.
I collect discarded cherry pickers with bad hydraulic cylinders, extend the piston rod, slide a piece of pipe over that then reinstall the boom pin so the boom is always at full height. I weld two plates to the end of the boom and run a bolt through an iron or steel pulley. That lets me use my industrial comealongs hooked to the low end of the boom to reach deep into any engine bays. F-16 gun cranes used to R&R their 20mm cannon are similarly simple and where I got the idea. I don't make any of it pretty, just overkill strong since I leave these outdoors for decades.
I put car wheel spindles on my "outdoor" engine stand bases too and extend the tongues so I can tow them (slowly!) on gravel. I despise small casters even on concrete so those get harvested or discarded. Feel free to experiment with steel! You can always cut off what you don't like then weld something different. I use Harbor Freight engine stands for all sorts of tasks by modding the heads and every motorcycle engine I pull gets one.
Second getting a used patient lift! I have two and want a bariatric. They have non-marring casters and adjustable width so they can fit through a standard doorway. They're nice for placing transmissions and small engines on teardown tables (make one, you won't be sorry). I also collect steel industrial carts from business auctions and I don't mean sheet metal but the custom kind welded from heavier stock by local shops which makes them strong, versatile and easy to modify. They go dirt cheap. Ditto steel "U-boat dollie/carts" used in grocery stores to move frozen foods. I pull the axle bolts from the midships wheels so I can push them in any direction and add shelves to most of mine.
If you put time and thought into "material handling" like industry does you can do it cheap and have a much more effective shop as a hobbiest or pro. I'm retired with a bad back but move all sorts of heavy things manually (including forty foot High Cube shipping containers by manual winching on pipe rollers when the delivery Landoll wouldn't clear my power lines). So can you!
I just replaced the stock chain with a swivel and new hook and then you can rotate the motor 180 and put it on the stand from behind. This allows the cherry picker to spoon the engine stand.
I've modified mine heavily. The front legs did not fold up originally, they do now. I added a fold down tray on the back for ballast (I use buckets filled with concrete) for those times when you need the boom out further than the load. I also welded on a handle to the back to make maneuvering it easier.
A friend did a similar thing with a bariatric patient lift which is basically just a medical version of an engine hoist. He got the legs out so any engine stand no matter how wide will fit and they still fit between the tires of all but little bitty cars.
I like the modified legs, I have square base engine stands and they are a pain to load and unload. I'll probably do something similar. One thing you should consider to make life easier on your lifting arm is use a hitch pin like you would use on a trailer hitch, way faster adjustments. On one of my square base engine stands I modified it to be smaller to fit inside the larger stand and also so the engine sits closer to the ground. This makes for a very stable setup but also less storage space taken up.
Weld the front wheels , so the lift go straight in , not sideways like a crab .
I’ve always wanted to mod mine but haven’t yet. The biggest thing o learned was from Mike Finnegan. Harbor freight sells a pneumatic cylinder that bolts right into most cherry pickers. The one he had had both the pneumatic and manual in it so it wasn’t useless if you didn’t have air but is awesome if you do have air.
I have the motorcycle lift table that is pneumatic and manual. I didn't know thay made a long cylinder that way too.
Possibly move those front wheels to the outside of your new corners for greater stability.
Cool idea on the mod engine lift , boom extension would keep more in . Run stand nice set up, 2 pc . Less out in floor .
Too many square/right angle joints…
You NEED some triangle gussets, or triangle braces
I bought the smaller cherry picker from Harbor Freight. The only difference is the lifting arm was a bit shorter. The framing was the same. I did a modification to the lifting arm where the chain hook reaches the wheels on the end there. I made a video on my channel you can check out. You can lift the whole 1000 lbs all the way out on the end where the wheels are. It's strong enough to lift a tank. LOL.
When you make supports for the front of the engine, make the supports to screw into the oil pan rail bolt holes. 2 on each side. That is how the dedicated engine run stands do it. You then can bolt up any engine to it without making dedicated supports. Using the oil pan rails is a more universal setup.
Love this mod, I assume the cherry picker will still slide under the vehicle for installation. I want to mod mine to be taller with a I beam extension. Then put a hoist trolly setup to be able to install engine in vehicle without having to move cherry picker on those last few inches. Just move the trolly back and forth while also being able to hoist at engine rather than having to go pump the cherry picker. Sounds good in my head but not sure, would be cool if it worked.
Perfect, nice job !
Great idea and modification
With the front legs level with the rear, why not cut the front legs on an angel so you could weld the new metal to the rear legs and then weld them to the cut-off part of the front as reinforcement and have the legs go straight forward from the rear. The hoist would end up with a wider and heavier weight lemit? 😊
The only thing I think I'd do differently is to add a full length piece of square tube inside the adjustable beam on top and just re-drill the adjustment holes once that is welded in place.
That should at least eliminate the chance of the beam bending at the end of the main lifting beam the ram attaches to. That way you can extend it as far as you want as long as it doesn't start picking up the rear of the crane itself.
I think the extensions on the fold up legs you added was a excellent idea as well and something I intend to do on my Pittsburgh 2 ton crane too sense I do allot of big block work and have to reach way out over my trailer sides to pick up stuff quite often . That should really help when I need to lift things off a trailer when the arm needs to be at pretty much full extension so you can reach the center of the trailer better .
Ya , both will add more weight but then again I've never been accused of under building anything before and a point my friends often tease me about !
I like your icon picture. I too served at Ft. Campbell .well sack in the 90's
@@gordonsgarage1845 I was only at Ft Campbell for training. Then was in Nam from 70 _72 with the 2/17 on an air assault team mostly in military region 1 up by the DMZ and operated in the Ahsu Valley primarily from Camp Eagle and a few firebase . I'm setting up a new hot rod garage at my new homestead to keep my 71 Riviera and 83 C-10 Lowrider in at the moment and am always looking around for new ideas to make things work better and that crane mod is a good one for sure. I've been retired since 06 and just dub off now playing around with my hot rods ,working on my woodlot and just having fun nowadays. Semper Fi brother,,,,,,,
You should video your builds or create a slide show of your work in the shop and post it on your channel. Both are awesome cars.i learn a lot from other RUclips videos.
You could have made those legs with an adjustable width with maintaining parallelism between the legs.
Looks good