I'm not weak, but I'm not as young as I used to be, either. ;) Occasionally, I have to haul stuff like engines, and my portable gantry hoist isn't always convenient. I've used my hitch hauler on my Bronco several times with total success, but now that I have a 1-ton dually, I figure I should take advantage of it. I've been looking at commercially-available lifts & cranes, but the decent ones are REALLY expensive &/or heavy &/or require a lot of mods. The easy ones don't look strong enough to lift a spare tire. All of them seem unnecessarily bulky/tall, and interfere with normal bed use.

So I'm thinking about building my own, but I'm not sure what the bed can handle. I'd like to put it all the way on the passenger side of the t/g opening so the cargo floor stays clear, and attach it to the bedwall so it pivots over the wheelwell & stows fully below the bedrail. Has anyone here ever done/seen one like that? How much weight can the rear corner of the bed handle? How much side load can the bedwall tolerate? I'm considering reinforcing the floor & side under the bed so they don't bend, but if it's not necessary...

The idea is for it to pivot on that corner of the bed & simply raise/lower a telescopic boom with a long hydraulic jack. A static cable on a pulley will be available for compounding the lift height & speed (at a cost of capacity), but it'll also have a dead-lift hook. It'll lift from a foot or so above the ground to ~6' above the bed floor, and pivot almost 180°. The telescope will go from ~36-66".

I'm not weak, but I'm not as young as I used to be, either. ;) Occasionally, I have to haul stuff like engines, and my portable gantry hoist isn't always convenient. I've used my hitch hauler on my Bronco several times with total success, but now that I have a 1-ton dually, I figure I should take advantage of it. I've been looking at commercially-available lifts & cranes, but the decent ones are REALLY expensive &/or heavy &/or require a lot of mods. The easy ones don't look strong enough to lift a spare tire. All of them seem unnecessarily bulky/tall, and interfere with normal bed use.

So I'm thinking about building my own, but I'm not sure what the bed can handle. I'd like to put it all the way on the passenger side of the t/g opening so the cargo floor stays clear, and attach it to the bedwall so it pivots over the wheelwell & stows fully below the bedrail. Has anyone here ever done/seen one like that? How much weight can the rear corner of the bed handle? How much side load can the bedwall tolerate? I'm considering reinforcing the floor & side under the bed so they don't bend, but if it's not necessary...

The idea is for it to pivot on that corner of the bed & simply raise/lower a telescopic boom with a long hydraulic jack. A static cable on a pulley will be available for compounding the lift height & speed (at a cost of capacity), but it'll also have a dead-lift hook. It'll lift from a foot or so above the ground to ~6' above the bed floor, and pivot almost 180°. The telescope will go from ~36-66".


I think that will be the key. I'd stay away from using the bed wall for support at all. support from underneath so you can have a nice 1/2" plate and some good gussets supporting the base of your crane.

We built a sled deck with a crane to lift sleds up / down via winch mounted under the bed. I like the hydro idea, you need a pretty hefty beam to support a load at the length you want to have that arm to be.

I did something like that with my truck but I mounted a 1/2 plate between the mounting plate for my pintle hitch and the hitch itself. I welded a 1/2 plate on top of that plate to mount the crane [same crane type as you are refering to] and reinforced it with gussets for strength. I was able to lift engines and construction equipment parts over the bed rail without any problem. I could leave the crane mounted until I removed the equipment from the bed. Then I when I didn't need it , I would take it off and stow it on the passenger inside of the bed. I never had to take my hitch off because the plate stayed and I could still utilize the hitch at the same time , towing a trailer. I even used it with the trailer connected to load things on the trailer. the only down side was the tailgate had to stay up but then i purchased a 12 inch trailer hitch extension and was able to put the tailgate down, while still using the crane with a trailer behind the truck.The thing was I could remove the crane from the truck and utilize the whole bed for my personal use and I kept the body and sides of the truck original without any reinforcing or cutting or drilling into my truck. just my thoughts===charlie

^^ That sounds like a good setup Charlie, do you have any pics?

No pictures, When I left that job because of a military move , I sold it, that was approx. 2 years ago. Haven't worked since, can't find a decent construction job anywhere, even the company that I left is almost out of business but I keep plugging along. charlie

I had a home made set up with a big boat winch and picking up engines was easy but the bed was weak. I had to build supports under the bed for better strength. The one issue i did have was when picking up a large item to the side of the truck the truck would lean way over, this made it swing hard and when the truck started to level out the damn load would all the sudden swing easily and take off on yah. Swinging the load back off the side of the truck was quite a challenge sometimes too. You swing 800lb off the side of a truck and it wants to just about tip over. I often thought of mounting an adjustable swing away jack "trailer tongue jack" on each end of the bumper to help support the truck when swinging a load. I have since sold the boom and never used one since.

Take a look at Spitzlift (http://www.spitzlift.com/)

http://www.spitzlift.com/images/shop/cache/data/lb15-4-250x250.jpg

the one I had looked like the above and you could fold it up to a certain degree and it would stow below the top of the bed rail. woodchuck2, thats why I mounted it on top of my hitch, the truck did not roll off to the side much when lifting something heavy and when I was lifting , it was actually back to front so the weight was on both rear springs instead of just one spring off to the side just my thoughts-===charlie

It's built - it works - it's stronger than I expected. I still have to take it apart one more time for sandblasting, finish welding, a little grinding, & painting, but I was amazed how well it worked. I had to pull an engine from a truck on a trailer, and I didn't feel like unloading the truck to use my normal engine hoist on pavement, so I used the new crane. I brought a longer boom tube (which is thin-walled & I expected it to bend before lifting the engine), and I still had to put the t/g on the trailer to reach. But surprisingly, even with the engine overfilled with oil/coolant mixed, and a full torque converter, and a heavy transmission (until it pulled away), the long boom lifted it. It was so much weight that, when I swung it to the other side, the truck tilted visibly, and it almost looked like the RHR tires were coming off the ground (shown in one of the pics). That's with a factory 10K GVWR package! The floor plate is only 1/4", with some 1/4" shims to fill in the floor corrugations, and the substructure is the same thin-walled tubing as the long boom. This thumbnail links to the album:

http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/901060/thumbnail/28up.jpg (http://www.supermotors.net/registry/22771/78471-4)