Engine hoist capacity beware

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BadDog
Posts: 5131
Joined: Wed May 17, 2006 8:21 pm
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Re: Engine hoist capacity beware

Post by BadDog »

I've got one of the HF fold-up engine hoists. Bought in early aughts, and used for a LOT of stuff along the way. Engines of course, but also a LOT of other stuff. I also have a really good friend I trust implicitly, even with tools, and I don't trust ANYONE borrowing tools. On stuff like this that takes up a lot of room, we tend to share, so even I alone use one more than a typical home shop, but it's been used quite a lot by him as well.

I agree about the safety factors, and for stuff like this, I derate the claimed limits by 25-50% depending, and keep clear at that. Still, it's worked admirably over the years. I expect the heaviest load it ever had to manage was my buddies 6BT that we adapted into his 72 Suburban (he did most of the work, I made adapter parts). In the course of getting that 6BT shoehorned into that compartment, it must have gone in and out nearly a dozen times. And that's in a tall truck, so extended. It wasn't happy, but it did it and continues to work today. Some day I'm going to convert to air-over, I really hate running that thing up from the full down stored position.

As for rigid casters on the front, I don't think I would want that. I understand it's a LOT easier to move where you want it, particularly when loaded. But when working the way we often use it, it's important to be able to move left/right a small amount. Like when fitting motor mount locations, and there is no room for front/back parallel parking shenanigans without pulling the motor out of the hole. We've used ropes and make-shift levers to jog it over as needed, so I wouldn't want to change that. Just stuffing them in and yanking them out, it might be just fine, particularly if you can have enough length of chain to shift around, but I need more from it than that.

Speaking of shifting around, the best setup I ever used was a 20' gin-pole setup along with cable winch. Bottom dropped on the ball hitch with chain hooks on each side about 12' up. Chains went from there to outboard cleats on the bed (flat bed car hauler) forming a wide V. And a big pulley captured up top with winch line run over it. With all that cable hanging, you could move an engine (and trans) around as you please without much effort at all. Much better than these little engine lifts.
Russ
Master Floor Sweeper
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