Some of you have seen my car hauler, it is a tilt deck with a hydraulic ram that eases the deck down when I drive on. I want to modify this so that I can lock it in the up posistion, what do I need to do to make this happen.

The reason I want to do this, is that if I have to load my truck dead and you are towing it on, it will start to tilt the deck down before my truck is on there

 

Do you mean lock it in the tilted position, as you would have it when you are loading. If that's what you want, just put a valve in the lines on the cylinder so it can't bleed down. You can add a ball valve, just on and off, and it won't effect the tilt unless it's in the closed position.

 

I dont think that there are any lines on the cylnder,, not that I can remember,, I will look at that when I unload my trailer later this week,,, so I could just put a ball valve in somewheres and some line and that will do the job?

 

Or you could cut a pipe in half lengthways to sit against the ram once it is out. Between the ram end and the cylinder.

 

That should do it but, it's probably a small cylinder so you might have to upgrade to a larger one in order to hold the weight without blowing a seal.

I use something similar on my loader to lock out the boom when you raise it. The only problem is if the boom drifts/sinks against the boom lock you can't remove it without being able to raise the boom just a little.

 

yes I need to be able to lower it for sure. I will measure the size of it and all that and see where it goes from there

 

You would probably need a cylinder you can pump up manually to do this, like off an engine hoist. Downside is you would have to pump it up all the time as well.

 

Oh ya.. Good point..