Combine Axle Super Shop Hoist

Combine Axle Super Shop Hoist COMBINES Modifications 28-2-38 When Glenn and Gordon Marshalek, Raymond, Nebraska, needed to pull the engine and transmission from a garbage truck, they realized their normal engine hoist might not be able to handle it. "The truck had a 3406 Cat diesel with an Allison automatic transmission, and our little hoist wasn't heavy enough to stand that much weight," Glenn says. He got to thinking about a home-built crane he'd seen once built out of a combine. He figured they could find more uses for a heavy-duty lift, so he located a Deere 45 self-propelled combine and the brothers went to work. They used just the front (drive) axle from the combine and added an A-frame tongue made from two 8-ft. lengths of 6-in. sq. steel tubing. They can move the two-wheeled cart around with a tractor. They used another 8-ft. length of the same square steel tubing for an upright, and a fourth 8-ft. length of tubing to make the boom. They mounted the riser at a 12-degree angle toward the tongue from perpendicular, so the hinge point is not directly over the axle. Then they mounted a 2-stage telescoping hydraulic lift cylinder salvaged from the dump bed of a 1963 Ford 2-ton grain truck between the riser and the boom. "Angling the riser and cylinder back slightly from perpendicular transfers more lift to the combine axle and upper end of the boom, so there's less weight on the tractor drawbar," Marshalek says. "We reinforced the boom tube where the cylinder mounts, using channel iron and angle iron salvaged from the scrap pile where I bought the square tubing," he adds. The boom reaches about 14 ft. high, and Marshalek figures it will pick up 10,000 lbs. or more, although he's not had a chance to test it with that much weight yet. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Glenn Marshalek, 1300 W. Little Salt Rd., Raymond, Neb. 68428 (ph 402 785-5195).

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