Fitting a small crane to the front of a Defender

Hi chaps,

Just recently I've needed to move lots of Ton sacks around my yard. I was thinking of making up some sort of crane with an old engine crane and fitting it via quick release mounts to my winch bumper. Do you think the front end is up to supporting that sort of weight? I think they weigh 800kg.

What I'd like to do is lift the sack, then drive the truck to where I want it placed and put it down again. The ground is flat and only 50 yards at the most so it doesn't need to be road legal etc and the strain wont be on the truck for long.

I'd appreciate any advice you could give me. Do you think it's possible or would it be too heavy and break something? I'm thinking it will take it but wouldn't be good for prolonged use?!

ive seen pictures of old landys with small a frames on them like a smalller version of the old break down trucks with the hand winches.how they are fitted havent got a clue.

Interesting idea ,never seen it done though ,cudnt you get hold of a cheap forklift truck somewhere ?

I've not really got the space to store a forklift. Besides I'll only need it a couple of times a month and it would also be handy to be able to take it to a site if needed.

When you talk about hand winch frames, are they on the rear like a tow truck or on the front? I'm thinking it would be best on the front because I could see what's going on and place the bags more accurately on my own.

be better on the back i think , using the front as a counter weight , same as the harvey frost rigs

Searched the internet and found this ,not quite what your after but you could just use reverse !

get a harvey frost for the arse end

Ooh, a crane and a tipper. That would be very nice! I wonder what the weight of that crane is? Something tells me it may reduce the load capacity to under a ton?

The main thing is that the general opinion seems to be front end = bad idea! I was kind of thinking that myself because of the weight of the engine etc but I think the setup would be a swine to use if I had to reverse into position. I was also thining that there would be less leverage over the front wheels as they're closer to the end of the body than the rear (I have a Hi-cap).Even dropping a pallet right on the rear end makes it sit down very low so to reach out even further could cause problems. Unless mounted on the bed, which would then more than likely mean more complicated mountings that were harder to fit/remove quickly?

I'll have a look at those Harvey Frost cranes and see what I may be able to do with them. It does make sense to use a proven system.

Loader tractor, telehandler or fork lift would be the most sensible tools for the job. If its just yard work then a forklift truck would do it nicely. If you need all terrain ability, or can make other uses for the kit, then the other 2 are handy.

If not, then how about arranging the sacks to be dropped onto pallets, then using a hand pallet truck to move them the 50 yds. If its got gradients or you're lazy, an electric pallet truck can do the job.

If its for a company, then beware, you're into LOLER regs etc once you start lifting stuff more than a few inches off the floor. Nobody makes a front crane for a LR, so you'll have a hill of issues. A quick Google search reveals: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg290.pdf , for example. A bodged crane breaking off an old landie isn't the real issue, its possibly dropping it on a person and killing them. Or it breaking off while driving and injuring the driver, etc.

If you just want to move some stuff for your own private purposes and don't really care about safety too much, then how about lashing an engine crane to the rear chassis of a Landy (or pickup bed), or one of them little corner cranes you can get for pickups to lift heavy items in and out of them?

MikeDowson said:

Penny Hydraulics Miniloader crane 250kg capacity on eBay (end time 13-Oct-10 20:54:09 BST)

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Not much use to lift a ton :doh:

TBH to stay within max load requirements of both the crane and vehicle, is going to be hard even with the 3.5 ton heavy duty version of the Defender. Firstly, the front axle is never going to cope so its a rear crane of some type. The more it leans out beyond the axle, the higher the rear axle loading because in addition to lifting the weight, it acts like a pivot too. For example, if 1000kg is lifted, then the pivoting effect might mean 400kg less weight is on the front wheels, so the rear wheels must take +1400kg.

Maybe at this point we need more info: What's this for? Farmyard? Work? Budget? Why not get the proper kit in? Why build something dodgy bolted onto a LR? etc etc

nathan5346 said:

Not much use to lift a ton :doh:

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True, but the concept is there!

We used to have a series 3 109 pick-up at work. It had a small hiab on the back. It could lift the whole of a vauxhall nova and suspend it in the air. If you knew had to do it you could pick up and suspend bigger cars. I used to be able to pick up and transport cars up to vauxhall cavalier size by hooking the front of the car over the towball of the landy and then using the hi-ab to lift the rear. I never had the front wheels of the landy off the ground neither AND it was while I was driving offroad 9 times out of 10.

Any update on this?

Average engine cranes will only take 300-500kg max by the way, you'd probably need to double up and use two.

Langers said:

Average engine cranes will only take 300-500kg max by the way, you'd probably need to double up and use two.

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mine is a 2 ton jobbie...... its got an 8 ton ram on it

800kg swinging from the front would make the rear very light. I'd suggest putting it on the back or even attaching an engine hoist to the bed in the back with the end sticking out of the back door.

used to have a series 2 88" that had just what you need on it.
hand 2 brackets bolted through with the bumper mount bolts and an a-frame attached to that with a pully at the top, all you did was chuck your winch line over the pully and you got a crane.
before me it was used to shunt mineing equipment around the mine yard, easily a tonne at a time and they just put some slabs in the back as ballast

paul_c said:

Any update on this?

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Any update from the original poster on this?