# Making my gantry crane mobile.



## John Conroy (Sep 16, 2021)

I will be moving this Princess Auto gantry between my shop and a friends so I needed a way to make it relatively easy. I have a home built folding motorcycle trailer that has a 8' X 4' deck. The footprint of the crane is 47" X 100" so my trailer is good for width but about 4" too short in length (story of my life). I made up a couple of bolt on pocket extensions that the wheels of the crane can drop into on the rear of the trailer. I gave it a test load today and lifted one end at a time onto the trailer with my engine crane. It only took about 10 minutes to load so this will work well. I'm going to add a 1.5" tall piece across the back of the pocket to capture the wheels so once it is set in place the crane can't roll off by accident. I'm still working on tie down solutions but I'm pretty pleased with how little work it took to modify my existing trailer to do this job. When not in use the extension pockets are easy to take off by removing two 3/4" nuts on each one.


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## Tom O (Sep 16, 2021)

Looks good but I’d still anchor it somehow.


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## John Conroy (Sep 16, 2021)

Yes, for sure it will have at least 4 ratcheting cargo straps holding it in place. Putting backs on the pocket is only to keep it in place while securing it with straps. Here are the finished pockets.


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## YYCHM (Sep 16, 2021)

How about J bolts through the  trailer deck capturing the bottom horizontal outrigger members or wheels, then you don't have to putz with straps?

Or load binders.

Or turnbuckles.


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## Tom O (Sep 16, 2021)

Or the Hook!


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