How do you all lift/move your engines when there not on wheels?
Forgetting the usual automotive engine crane what do you use. I was thinking of making two A frames from scaffold poles with another pole acting as the 'beam' between them and using a pull lift hoist. Am i asking for trouble doing this?
Any suggestions would be gratefully received. Of course you are all fully waived and disclaimed from all liability arising from any any advice given
Andrew
When I am away from my storage area with its pull lift I use three scaffold poles joined at the top with a long thick bolt. I mount a pull lift on the bolt & join the scaffold poles at the bottom with rope or chain to prevent them spreading. I have lifted engines of 6 HP this way for many years with no problems so far. See
-- Dave Croft Warrington England
It all depends whether you want to lift or move it: To move my engines I had a square of strong plywood with 4 casters on it: I'm going to have to make a new one for shifting my yet-to-be-collected Lister D, using two 3" casters and two 3" fixed wheels from Machine Mart. That'll do to move it around in the garage, which has a nice, level, concrete floor.
Brian L Dominic
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As a straight lifting device, an A frame is easy to store and set up but is limited in its scope. Rex Chatfield had a good idea: he has set a steel tube in the ground and a solid inverted L frame with hydraulic crane jib drops into it when required. With this, one man can lift (say) a Crossley 1075 weighing a good seven hundredweight straight up by pumping at a lever. A trailer is then manoeuvred underneath and Robert is your mother's brother.
Moving across the floor horizontally - well, it depends on the surface. The little I can see of my garage/workshop floor is smooth enough, but the garden path is dreadfully uneven, so castored trolleys wouldn't work for me.
A vertical engine I would probably "walk" from corner to corner on a solid piece of plywood. You can move surprising weights that way, but be careful not to let it get away from you. A horizontal engine is more difficult, especially as they tend to be heavier than verticals. A sheet of solid ply and a crowbar will usually do it.
I have lifted half a ton before now with a crowbar and a number of decent wooden blocks, placed upon direction by a nervous Hazel - but I'll only admit to moving that sort of weight up a step etc!
In a more general way, I thoroughly recommend you to a second hand set of hydraulic sack trucks, an absolute Godsend for anyone working alone and well worth the eighty quid I paid for mine.
Regards,
Kim Siddorn
Mine are small enough to pick up but that's missing your point. Whatever you make, proof test it before use. That's quite easy to do. When I lift on a temporary support, I take the weight and then add about 1.5cwt more to make sure the support has something in hand. By coincidence, I weigh said 1.5cwt.
John
Still haven't got the original post up on the newsgroup for some reason :-((
We have two means of lifting, a big A-frame that we had made some years ago, and a 15cwt Pul-lift chain hoist, plus the hydraulic crane that we bought out of a local paper and had shot-blasted and repainted. The A-frame and hoist pick up the Ruston OK, and that's about as big a lump as we are likely to want to move, although the Ward 2A lathes were probably heavier and they were lifted OK.
If you add the guy next door's fork truck, that makes 3, and Chris up the farm also has assorted fork trucks/tractors etc., so normally we are not stuck for moving gear around. The only time it gets a bit heavy is when we cannot get any of that stuff to bear on whatever we are moving...
Peter
-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:
I have a Machine Mart engine crane. A horrible thing, particularly for it's wheels and their dislike of any floor unevenness, but I wish I'd bought it years ago. Once or twice I've pulled engines with it, mostly it gets called into service moving machine tools - even a film editing desk!
A wheeled skate is also well worth having (make your own - 4 casters,
2" L angle and a stick welder). One of mine was made to go under 40 gallon drums, the other is home-made. With this, a tripod and a chain block you can move most things.I also have a hi-lift jack (for 4x4 recovery). This thing is truly terrifying and I've almost never used it. The crudity of it, the risk to fingers, and the sheer nastiness of reversing the movement direction (it involves a hammer and momentary total loss of control) all make me simply afraid of the damned thing.
If you get a cheap foreign bottle jack, make a frame and you have a cheap foreign hydraulic press. Mine is about 30 Tonne and it's incredibly useful. I paid about £30 for the jack and scrounged the steel and bolts for free. Even the paint was left over from another job. It sure beats beating bearings with hammers and drifts.
John
Bit of a non sequitur, surely?
Tom
Not really, I use those for trimming the roses.
John
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