[Lionelgee]

Some time later ...

There stood a fully reassembled mobile gantry crane!

Next task was to utilise the 'mobile' aspect of the gantry crane and I hooked my ride-on mower to the one of the A-frames and away I went.

The last couple of photographs show the good-old ride-on mower and the positioning of the gantry crane over its first victim ... oops its first job. It is a Series 2 ex-Australian Army 109 General Service Land Rover. See - there is a military link to this whole story after all!

Is it a case of irony that I had to make a lifting frame so I could fill in the gap of my lifting capacity - that required the assembly of a mobile gantry crane. A gantry crane that I bought so I could lift heavy stuff up in the paddock?

Well, I am having a rest tomorrow. The day after that I will be using the gantry crane to do the job it was purchased for. Lifting heavy things out in the paddock.

Oh, the space between the two shipping containers is where motor vehicles become very - very nervous. They are either towed or driven to the spot from one end. Then some time and effort later only parts emerge that get stored in the shipping containers.

If you go back to the first couple of photographs - the eagle-eyed will see why I built the pallet racking lifting frame - it has the Defender's tray clamped to the bottom set of pallet beams. Before having a mobile gantry crane the pallet racking frame was put into good use to lift off the flat tray so I could get the chassis repaired. I also have to replace some of the cross-members on the tray itself. Tin worm caused by decades of driving through a cattle property out in Western Queensland and years of accumulated cow-poo is very corrosive. The Defender's tray did not have any mudguards so the poo was thrown up and stuck to the bottom of the tray. The steel cross-members at the front and back of the rear wheels are the only ones that need replacing.

This was MK-II of pallet racking used as a lifting device. I previously used MK-I to lift off a Land Rover Series 2A ambulance module off my trailer after I was offered the module for free. I positioned the trailer inside a set of side frames and hooked pallet beams under the trailer. I then used a series of jacks to raise the ambulance module off the trailer until it was high enough to put a set of pallet beams across underneath the module. I removed the front pallet beam under the trailer so I could tow the trailer away. I then towed a Land Rover 109 chassis underneath the module and lowered the module down onto the chassis and towed it away.

I have very, very recently been informed that with the gantry crane out in the paddock there is no longer any need to have an "ugly" steel structure positioned so close to the house! Ugly - indeed. Looks like I have scored myself another job. Disassembling a very handy pallet racking frame.

Kind regards,
Lionel