Basic Bumper Crane.

This 2000lb winch was on sale, I used it to make a bumper crane for lifting heavy rounds of fire wood.


First thing to change was the original bumper

New bumper material. 3" x 3" x 7' - 1/8th" wall thickness. at 0.50 ¢ a pound this cost me less than $ 17.00

 

Drilling 7/8" holes and cutting between them with a zip blade for inserting a 6" x 2½" receiver hitch tube.



The 1/8th" wall thickness tube needed more strength so this ¼" x 64" x 3-3/8th" steel plate will be welded to the front face of the bumper.



This 1/8th" thick piece from my junk pile already had a tight bend and will be used on the rear face of the bumper to strengthen the receiver, it measures 8½" x 4½" x 3-3/8"

 

Using 1/8th" tube with additional plates in critical areas will hopefully keep the weight under that of the OEM bumper.

The 1/8th" plate on top aligns with the edge of the ¼" plate for welding.

 

Bumper bolted to frame plates for more measuring.

Passenger side of the bumper has a light weight 2" receiver as a stabilizer for the crane vertical post, a smaller post that holds the winch and boom slips inside and transfers the weight into the ground and not into the truck, this also allows the truck to move up or down as weight is added or removed.

 

These 1/8th" wall thickness telescoping posts are called Telespar, they come with or without 7/16" holes spaced 1 inch apart, I found a pile of these at a salvage yard and grabbed them, the three sizes pictured are 1¾" O.D. 2" O.D and 2¼" O.D. if you want strength without too much weight these work great.

I found this old pop top trailer axle at our local dump and dragged it home to use the hubs for the crane swivel.

 

I used a 20" length of 2" O.D Telespar with 18 and 20 guage shims slipped in for a tight fit to secure the hub.


Cut the bent part off of the old rim and used whats left to mount a vertical post on the hub.

 

Cut and folded the rim edge over for more bolting area.

Bolted a ½" thick x 2½" x 10" long steel plate to the rim. this can be unbolted for servicing the hub bearings.

 

3/16th" x 1½" x 2½" angle iron secures a 2" x 2" O.D vertical hitch tube to the steel plate.

 

With all the welding done the bumper comes in at 42 pounds, 10 less than the OEM Toyota bumper. instead of welding caps on the ends of the bumper I chose to use removable ½" x 2¾ " nylon plastic plugs, I cut them close to size then used a plane to make them fit snug, I'll drill a few 15/64 holes in the bumper, set the plugs in place then drill them to 3/16 for the screws.

 

Time for some clean up, paint and wrenching.

 

Crane vertical post welded to the receiver hitch.



About an inch of clearance next to the tailgate.

Mocking up some of the vertical post parts.


Winch is mounted to a receiver hitch and slips into a piece of Telespar bolted to the vertical post, held by a pin.

 

From my junk pile a beefy lifting arm from an old hydraulic floor jack, should work good as a pivot.

The lifting arm is wedged between those two plates, I'm using the 2¼" O.D Telespar for the main boom with short sections of 2" Telespar slipped inside wherever it's bolted along with ½" I.D steel pipe spacers to prevent the Telespar from crushing when tightened, the plates are 1/8" thick 5" x 8"

 

After 27 days working on the new bumper/crane build it's pretty much done, working on the pins to have two positions for boom height.

Drilling the ends of the pins to accept these pull handles using thin rod makes installing/removing the pins a lot easier.


Boom in the low and high position.


The whole crane is a take down design for easier storage and makes for lighter pieces, the heaviest piece is the swivel at a reasonable 28 lbs, the whole crane including the winch weighs 80 lbs.