The wood truck has been MUTATED!

[Pipeliner_86]

In the spirit of Frankenstien and fabrication, I felt the Wood Truck needed yet another home-made addition. I cut as much wood as I can to heat the house, and my '86 F350 is the mule that does the haulin. I can fit quite a bit of wood on her, but lifting those heavy logs up to the flatbed can be back-breaking sometimes. So I came up with a plan.....why not build a crane to lift the big pieces of wood that I don't feel like man-handling.
So I present to you my creation. It still needs some finishing touches and some black paint, but it works.....well at least it'll pick my fat-ass up

 

[Exekiel69]

Nice, I have one like that one on Mine as well, I didn't build it Myself dough. Those long logs can weight quite a bit some times if Man-handled

 

[rubberfish]

A rattle can of black and that'll be as good
or better than any store bought one.
Good job pipeliner.

 

[Pipeliner_86]

The best part of the crane is, I didn't spend any money building it. It's thrown together from stuff I had laying around. The main support base is leftover 6" pipe from the exhaust system on my truck. Two old combine bearings inside the pipe let the 3" pipe mast rotate with ease. The arm is a street light pole from work I chopped up for making the head-ache rack that the crane base is welded to. The winch came from harbor frieght about two years ago, it used to be on my lawn tractor to lift the snowplow. Even the wood grapple on the end of the winch line was a donation from a scrap pile.
I was going to buy the $99.00 crane you mount in a truck bed from harbor frieght, but why spend money when I got the stuff to make it, I just had to use my imagination,as I did with the rest of the homemade stuff on my truck.

 

[zigg]

Nice

I love doin' stuff like that. Makes the truck unique, and makes you feel accomplished. I've got a "loggers" box on mine, and I'm working on putting it on a hydraulic dump. I too do the firewood routine, and it gets pretty tedious throwing 4 cords 'o wood around each year...and I'm not getting any younger...

Nice job man

Zigg

 

[RLDSL]

Now all you need is to rig a nice big saw in the front bumper to cut the trees down without having to get out of the cab

------------Robert

 

[JPR]

The timing on your post was mean. Today I had to load several things onto the trailer with the engine hoist and then take the engine hoist along so we could unload it at the other end. Kept seeing your post and thinking how nice it would be to have a 1500# hoist mounted on the trailer.

 

[Pipeliner_86]

I origanally planned to hack up my old engine lift that has been residing over at the farm for a few years now. It probably would have been easier than what I built in the end, but we still use the lift occasionally for odds and ends. But I think an old engine hoist would make a great trailer crane. Hardest part is coming up with a way for the lift to rotate at the base. Once you figure that out the rest falls together.
I spent the majority of my "thinking time" trying to come up with a swivel base.

 

[subway]

very cool, i have often thought about doing something like that before. i just have way to much other stuff lined up. well that and my back is still working good.
so how did you attack it to the frame? is it just attached to the headache rack?

 

[Pipeliner_86]

very cool, i have often thought about doing something like that before. i just have way to much other stuff lined up. well that and my back is still working good.
so how did you attack it to the frame? is it just attached to the headache rack?

It's just welded to the headache rack. I still need to fab up at least one more support bracket, to bolt to the bed for heavy lifting support.
My wife, the boys and myself cut a truckload of wood on Saturday, and put the crane to work, and it worked great! I used it to drag a 250.lb log out of the brush 25 feet away from the truck. I unspooled the winch, wrapped it around the log and drug it all the way back to the truck and up onto the bed, no sweat or labor on my part.

The crane ROCKS!!

 

[Russ]

I think one that would slide into the reciever hitch would work well. That way you could load the truck then remove it.

 

[Agnem]

Tongue weight limits might restrict the lading.

 

[Michael Fowler]

A fried of mine used to sell a crane in a step bumper. They were 12v powered and rated at 1/2 tn ( I think). IIRC, the name was something like "Bumper-Mule" or ....
I think I tripped over some in his garage a few months ago. If anyone is interested, I will see if any are still available. PM me.

 

[subway]

I think one that would slide into the reciever hitch would work well. That way you could load the truck then remove it.

I would be wary of the torsional force placed so far back of the frame. a 500lb load extended 4 feet behind the truck would be a 1,000ft/lbs of rotational force twisting that hitch. just like a huge breaker bar

this is just a rough estimate some trig would have to be done with the heigth figure in to get a good number. that is the problem when you only anchor them at the base like that.

i do have a question though, how does that log splitter tow behind the truck. i have one i bought lights for but havent wired it up yet. it has the little boat tires on it and "says" not to go above 20mph. trouble is i cant see it at all if it does go squarrely on my, probubly wouldent even feel it.

 

[RLDSL]

I would be wary of the torsional force placed so far back of the frame. a 500lb load extended 4 feet behind the truck would be a 1,000ft/lbs of rotational force twisting that hitch. just like a huge breaker bar

this is just a rough estimate some trig would have to be done with the heigth figure in to get a good number. that is the problem when you only anchor them at the base like that.

i do have a question though, how does that log splitter tow behind the truck. i have one i bought lights for but havent wired it up yet. it has the little boat tires on it and "says" not to go above 20mph. trouble is i cant see it at all if it does go squarrely on my, probubly wouldent even feel it.

You'd have to have a heavy duty hitch. There's a lot of light duty ones out there with only a 500 lb tonge weight

If that trailer wont take road speed, you could always put some bigger wheels on it, that's assuming that it has real trailer hubs on it and not dolly type wheels.

------Robert