How To: Mobile Gantry Crane Fabrication to Fill an Outdoors Lifting Gap

[Lionelgee]

Some time later ...

There stood a fully reassembled mobile gantry crane!

Next task was to utilise the 'mobile' aspect of the gantry crane and I hooked my ride-on mower to the one of the A-frames and away I went.

The last couple of photographs show the good-old ride-on mower and the positioning of the gantry crane over its first victim ... oops its first job. It is a Series 2 ex-Australian Army 109 General Service Land Rover. See - there is a military link to this whole story after all!

Is it a case of irony that I had to make a lifting frame so I could fill in the gap of my lifting capacity - that required the assembly of a mobile gantry crane. A gantry crane that I bought so I could lift heavy stuff up in the paddock?

Well, I am having a rest tomorrow. The day after that I will be using the gantry crane to do the job it was purchased for. Lifting heavy things out in the paddock.

Oh, the space between the two shipping containers is where motor vehicles become very - very nervous. They are either towed or driven to the spot from one end. Then some time and effort later only parts emerge that get stored in the shipping containers.

If you go back to the first couple of photographs - the eagle-eyed will see why I built the pallet racking lifting frame - it has the Defender's tray clamped to the bottom set of pallet beams. Before having a mobile gantry crane the pallet racking frame was put into good use to lift off the flat tray so I could get the chassis repaired. I also have to replace some of the cross-members on the tray itself. Tin worm caused by decades of driving through a cattle property out in Western Queensland and years of accumulated cow-poo is very corrosive. The Defender's tray did not have any mudguards so the poo was thrown up and stuck to the bottom of the tray. The steel cross-members at the front and back of the rear wheels are the only ones that need replacing.

This was MK-II of pallet racking used as a lifting device. I previously used MK-I to lift off a Land Rover Series 2A ambulance module off my trailer after I was offered the module for free. I positioned the trailer inside a set of side frames and hooked pallet beams under the trailer. I then used a series of jacks to raise the ambulance module off the trailer until it was high enough to put a set of pallet beams across underneath the module. I removed the front pallet beam under the trailer so I could tow the trailer away. I then towed a Land Rover 109 chassis underneath the module and lowered the module down onto the chassis and towed it away.

I have very, very recently been informed that with the gantry crane out in the paddock there is no longer any need to have an "ugly" steel structure positioned so close to the house! Ugly - indeed. Looks like I have scored myself another job. Disassembling a very handy pallet racking frame.

Kind regards,
Lionel

[maple_leaf_eh]

Looks like you had fun with the tools making something that will be practical.

[Mike K]

Quite a bit of thought went into that . You should have been a structural engineer. How on earth did you get the trailer A frame up so high .

[Lionelgee]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

Quite a bit of thought went into that . You should have been a structural engineer. How on earth did you get the trailer A frame up so high .

Hello Mike,

In one of the photographs up high you will see a red oblong. This is a snatch block and I ran a rope through it to lift up the towing A-frame until it reached the top run of pallet rails. I then used the no-hook style of ratchet strap to secure the base of the A-frame to the side of the pallet rack's frame. With this pivot point fixed I just rotated the receiver end up until the towing A-frame was leaning against the pallet frame. I had positioned two lengths of 50 mm square hollow section (shs) that acted as horizontal rails that I used two cyclone bolts and two lengths of 40 mm x 8 mm steel plate. This combination formed a set of clamps. Two sets of clamps per shs rail and the pallet frame. Then two sets of the same type of clamp to fixing the towing A-frame to the shs. I did not want the A-frame to move! Especially, since it would all come tumbling down on my head.

Yesterday, I dismantled the whole pallet racking tower. There is nothing there now but empty space. I liked seeing the tower. However, I was under instruction to remove an 'eyesore' from so close to the house.

Kind regards
Lionel

[Lionelgee]

Hello Mike and All,

Here are some photographs of the clamps that I used to secure everything. The clamps are waiting for their next job.

The more eagle-eyed will work out that the square hollow section is 64 mm wide. I used this width for the 'sleeves' that fit over the brace between the I-beam and the mobile gantry crane's A-frame sides.

Kind regards
Lionel