Hello everyone,<br>I've been thinking about building a small corner box mounted crane to mount in the back right hand corner of my box. I want to make it quick removeable so that it's not in the way when not needed. When it is installed, I want to have it so I can use it as a pipe rack as well... I have a solid steel homebuilt box on the truck so mounting it to a solid surface won't be an issue. What I was wondering was if anyone has ever had/used one of these and what they thought of it and what the weaknesses were so I can build something that won't let me down. The biggest load I'd lift would be a 1000lb plate compactor... Any help is much appreciated. If and when I do build one I'll post pictures for everyone to see

 

Is this gonna be a hydraulic crane or what? Sounds like a cool idea. Hope it works out for ya.

 

We needed a lift on the farm so we took an old 75 Ford flatbed and mounted a engine cherry picker to the bed the hardest part was making it swing outward...after alot of messing around with the mount we came up using big ball bearings on the swing mount...it looked like hell but we could swing it with 1000 lbs on the hook...that was 15 years ago and it worked until we junked the truck last year

 

My new service truck has an AUTO CRANE setup on it and I must say, it's pretty handy for picking up all kinds of stuff. So far I have picked up an excavator bucket, a few large hydraulic cylinders, dozer sprockets, chains...ok you get the picture. The only thing that I have noticed is when you extend the boom out it does seem a little off balance even with the outriggers down on the back corners of the truck. What I am going to do is make a saddle for the boom to sit in, and right on the side of that I am going to make an additional larger saddle for pipe that I can remove using 2'' sqare tubing. I am not sure if this is what you are trying to do but it may help when you build yours

 

Hi again guys,<br>I'm not building anything as fancy as an autocrane, just a little manual job with an 8 ton long stroke jack and maybe a hand crank winch so I can load say a 1000 lb compactor or some drums of fuel without assistance. I want to design it to be easily removeable (pull a few bolts) and it's out of the way. When it is installed, I would like to have another post on the other side of the box that it would rest on and make a pipe rack at the same time, and bolt up to the crane to make an extension if needed... I'll have to see what it will cost me for materials and what I can butcher up ;D Thanks for the input so far!

 

There is a fellow in at work that mounted a hydraulic engine lift in the right rear corner of his bed so that it would pivot 360 degrees. It works very well and goes in and out in minutes.