Convert 8000lb shop crane to folding?

[SynViks]

The 8000lb figure in the title is *not* the rating on the jack, rather it's the rating on the hoist itself. It looks like this:



Has a hydraulic cylinder, not a bottle jack. Powered by a two speed pump. Twin wheel swivel casters on the front legs which slide in and out. The thing is a monster and is quite useful to me in loading/unloading heavy machines in my home garage. The downside is my home garage is a single car so there is absolutely no room to store this thing as is. Given I can't just go out and buy a 8000l long reach engine crane, it's worth it to me to see about converting this to a folding crane. The big issue--and I know this cannot be answered with certainty--is I don't want the conversion to compromise the lifting capacity.

Anyone done a conversion before? Does it usually take the form of the Harbor Freight style with the two pins or is there a better way to do it?

 

[GeoBruin]

The 8000lb figure in the title is *not* the rating on the jack, rather it's the rating on the hoist itself. It looks like this:



Has a hydraulic cylinder, not a bottle jack. Powered by a two speed pump. Twin wheel swivel casters on the front legs which slide in and out. The thing is a monster and is quite useful to me in loading/unloading heavy machines in my home garage. The downside is my home garage is a single car so there is absolutely no room to store this thing as is. Given I can't just go out and buy a 8000l long reach engine crane, it's worth it to me to see about converting this to a folding crane. The big issue--and I know this cannot be answered with certainty--is I don't want the conversion to compromise the lifting capacity.

Anyone done a conversion before? Does it usually take the form of the Harbor Freight style with the two pins or is there a better way to do it?

It looks to me like you could hinge the legs to fold up, but your ram/boom is not going to fold down as far as a folding engine crane, so you're not going to get quite as small a footprint. Even if you removed the extendable portion of the boom, it still looks like it would stick out several feet.

To that end, you may not need to make the legs fully fold up like the Harbor freight style lift. Rather, it might be easier to find some slightly smaller diameter tubing and make them telescope just like the boom does. You could then use a single pin to lock them in place in both the extended and retracted positions. You would need to do the calcs based on the overlap, tube diameter, wall thickness, etc. to make sure you're not compromising strength too much.

It's not going to fold up as small as a purpose built folding crane, but it save you some space. The crane just wasn't designed/built in a way that lends itself to being shrunk too much.

I understand the desire to do this. I came from a single car garage and I sought out the smallest footprint folding shop crane available (which I still have), though I ultimately ended up building a bridge crane.

Good luck and keep us apprised of your progress.

 

[SynViks]

The legs actually telescope already (I'll attach a diagram tomorrow to further illustrate). They are fully retracted in that picture and can extend out another ~40 inches. Any hinge point would need to be far enough back that they don't intersect with the leg telescoping inside (the legs end roughly where the center tube is welded between the legs).

With regards to the boom not laying flat, you're correct. I would need to unbolt the ram from the boom (would probably replace with a spring detent pin for ease of removal), and weld a "neck" where the boom attaches to the column like this Excalibur hoist has:



A bridge crane would be a god-send however this single car garage has a low ceiling height and it's original cracked 1930s slab; won't be doing anything substantial to it until it comes time to build a new garage. Thought about a gantry crane but it would have to live outside, in front of the garage, which isn't an appealing thought.

 

[Death Row Dave]

We had a giant JIB style crane in the pipe yard at work . I’m talkin 48 in base and 8 in I beam . It was constructed when the place was built to unload heavy pieces of equipment . I was gone in the field on a job for a few weeks . When I returned the JIB was gone . The new Boss and his crew , had it cut down because there no Weight Rating posted on the beam . I explained to him if he would have ask , I took him to cabinet where the building blue prints were stored and a print of the JIB was there . It plainly stated the weight rating for the crane and we could have painted the weight rating on the beam very easily and had it inspected with the other over head cranes in the shop at one time . Just another egg head tossing a tool because he never used it and knew the wealth of having another tool to raise and move heavy materials . He didn’t learn this with his people management diploma he told me about daily .