Pictures -- installed Harbor Freight truck crane today

Nice, neat job! My outdoor steelwork is all mill finish or ground welds sprayed with LPS3. The ground areas darken in a year or two and look like the mill scale.

I have to straighten the pin that keeps the boom from swiveling after a long trip on rough roads.

Jim Wilkins

thanks

I have some rust spots on my trailer, and maybe I should just spray them with LPS-3 on a sunny day?

Maybe it should be replaced with some Grade 8 bolt?

Anyhow, I plan on having my hook grabbing the front well and I hope that it will keep the crane from wanting to swing if the rope is tight.

Nice work. If it were me, I would shim up the spaces between the plate and the bed. It is resting on the raised part of the bed, not the maximum contact possible.

Do you have snow already in Chi-town? We have been having the annual bout of freezing fog here in Central Oregon. I hate it!

Paul

Thanks. I did place washers between the plate and the bed, where there was space. Good point about the shims.

We have freezing, but no snow.

Thanks. They are not joined now. I am not sure how strong the sidewall is. This is a good question.

Neat job. Now watch the weak point. Where the mast meets the truck side. You may want to load it and see how much deflection you get and determine if you want to add gussets along the side to join the two.

Let us know how it ages.

Steve

The stuff works well. My front end loader which has been exposed to salt-filled snow for 3 winters has only rusted where leaking hydraulic fluid washed it off.

The pin may have bent when the boom was angled in and tied to a lathe to help keep it from tipping. Afterwards I drilled extra holes to lock the boom in more positions and made solid plugs to fit the stake pockets and installed 3/8" SS eye bolts in them, with rubber grommets to seal the holes in the bed liner. I also added very useful tiedown eyes to the frame under the front edge of the bed while replacing the rear cab mounts.

Jim Wilkins

nice to know. I will use it for now.

This reminds me, I need to find some stake pocket mountable eyes. Thanks.

All the commercial ones I looked at didn't distribute the load to the sheetmetal as well as I'd like. I made solid plugs out of pressure treated wood and boiled them in wax so they wouldn't hold moisture. The top of the wood was fitted to the underside of the bed liner.

The plugs are held in by aluminum crosspins passing through the tiedown holes near the bottom of the pockets, and the tiedown eyebolts screw into holes tapped in the aluminum.

I drilled the lengthwise eyebolt holes in the lathe to be sure they would be centered on the crosspins, then assembled them in the stake pocket to drill and tap the crosspins. Luckily all 4 are centered well enough that they don't need This Side Up labels.

The inner ends of the front aluminum crosspins are tapped for bolts that attach a removeable wooden rear window guard.

Jim Wilkins

The sidewall won't be very strong with the tailgate down, so I wouldn't rely on it for any support. Perhaps run a couple square tubes, whatever size will fit, like 1.5", underneath the bed from the crane plate across to the other side of the frame. Secure the tubes to the frame with U bolts or similar and bolt to the crane plate on that end.

It is a good idea, except the tubes cannot be inserted due to bed configuration underneath, IIRC. There is a bunch of stuff that interferes with inserting tubes.

No matter, I think that I can use this crane to do a lot. If I remove the tailgate, it can be used in the most retracted position for quite a few things that I can think of.

Remove the 8 or so bolts that attach the bed to the truck and use your shop crane to lift one side enough to slip the tubes under, then lower the bed and bolt it back down. Check first, but there should be enough slack in the tail light electrical to allow for the small lift necessary.

Pete, what I was actually thinking, is to make some sort of appendage that would bolt to the TOP of the plate, when necessary, and that would provide extra leverage.

You could do that, but it would occupy bed space, not tie to the frame, and lifting the bed to slip tubes under shouldn't be a big deal.

I will test it tomorrow, in fact, I will be loading a 300 lbs rotary/cross clide table (Troyke DMT-15) that is mounted on something very strange. I have never seen a mount like this.

If I know you, I'd say you will figure out the weight limitations within the first 72 hours. ;-)

Steve

On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 09:48:54 -0800, with neither quill nor qualm, "SteveB" quickly quoth:

You misspelled "first hour", Steve.

------------------------------------------------------- Have you read the new book "What Would Machiavelli Do?" ----------------------------

I speak from experience. When you start loading it, you will see how much it flexes. And when you see how much YOURS flexes, you may want to either gusset it to the sidewall or put some diagonals in there. It's always something, ain't it?

Steve