2 post lift as gantry crane ?

[Shootinok]

Can a 2 post lift be fitted with a cross beam and used as a gantry crane?

Should have the capacity for engines or lifting off bodies.
Is this a bad idea ??


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[toplessHO]

lifts are made to "pick" from 4 places not 2
position your support beam on the middle of those points

 

[unslow1]

I see them used to lift off bodies a lot. You can still get 4 points to lift on. You would have to make a pretty good rig to make sure you were centered front to back to do engines. I'm sure people have done it.

 

[lakeroadster]

As long as your gantry / beam / whatever is bolted to the arms there won't be in any issues but you should lift via all four arms, or off the carriage the arms attach too

Most std height lift arms will only raise up to about 6 feet, so you'll need some gantry arrangement to actually make it an "overhead" lift.

Something like this would work really slick....

 

[sberry]

Depends on the amount of pick, some lighter loads can be picked 2 arms.

 

[metaleltr]

I believe OP means attaching a hoist or chain fall to the top cross bar. In which case would not be a good idea. The cross bar is designed to keep the posts parallel not to carry load from the center.

 

[larry_g]

Can a 2 post lift be fitted with a cross beam and used as a gantry crane?

Should have the capacity for engines or lifting off bodies.
Is this a bad idea ??


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Without some exact design it's hard to say if it is a bad idea or not. In my mind if you add a proper I beam across the top of the uprights and use a chain hoist then you should be fine. If you want to attach to the arms and use the lift mechanism then I can't answer that.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[matt_i]

Set on top of the columns, I would do that without reservation. The columns are massive for safety factor and have big baseplates.

Where this could go wrong is when there are cross-cables that coordinate the lifting of the arms. That setup would get in the way.

If you were planning to use the arms that's a possibility also but I would remove the pad & pin and replace them with pins of the same diameter, then some kind of bolt underneath so it cannot separate. Switching between the pads and the lifting frame would take some thinking to plan out. A cart or pallet jack could help out.

One issue could arise with short headroom lifts which have the coordination cables underneath, at ground level, under a small housing. That would make it difficult to get the load to the ground on any kind of a pallet or rolling cart/pallet jack, etc.