Moving large machines...sanity check

[Chestnut]

I don't know how to drive one but i have the phone number of a few bobcat engineers.... they don't know how to drive them either

[wdwerker]

Many years ago a neighbor was a heavy equipment operator. He used his Bobcat to remove 2 sections of my fence then pulled the post, that gave him room to drive the dump truck in and fill behind a retaining wall I built. He put the fence back and you couldn't tell once the tire tracks faded away.

[bleedinblue]

That was fun.  At least it would have been if it was thirty degrees warmer. 

It was really easy to drive.  I took it super slow, but it drove very well. 

Guess what came with narrow pallet forks?  I carried the crate lengthwise the whole way.  I chopped off a few inches of 4x4 and it fit through the gate just fine. 

No real issues.  The parking brake got stuck mid way when I stopped to check the clearance through the gate, twenty minutes and a call to the store later, I was told to reverse slightly while disengaging the brake.  Bingo. 

This was a nice "little" machine that made the move almost stress and labor free.  It struggled tilting the machine backward, wouldn't to as far as I'd had liked, so I chained the Hammer to the Bobcat.  

I was afraid to drive the heavy bobcat INTO the basement, so I placed the Hammer just inside, dropped it to the ground, then used the forks to push it in far enough to close the basement doors. 

Easy, and minimal damage to the yard

 

[Mark J]

Hurray!!

So how much was the rental for future reference?

[bleedinblue]

3 minutes ago, Mark J said:

Hurray!!

So how much was the rental for future reference?

$110/half a day, a little more for the forks and the trailer. 

[JohnG]

Looks like fun! Especially squeezing through the gate.

[Tom King]

After all the talk about it, you did it the absolute best way!   I knew nothing about that kind of Bobcat before, but now it's apparent that it's the right tool for the job for an old basement we have to clear, and dig out sometime in the future.   I'm glad forks were available for it.  I was worried about the crate, and a small bucket.

[Chestnut]

$110 well spent. The other ways might have worked but they would have been a lot less fun.

[bleedinblue]

There was lots of ways to skin this cat, but I'm completely satisfied with this one.  I'm confident that a lot of the ideas floated in this thread can be used by others. 

[pkinneb]

Nice! For $110 probably the best and quickest way to do it. Man it was definitely a snug fit through that gate LOL

[wdwerker]

So did the lube stain the wood around the gate ?

[Coop]

8 minutes ago, wdwerker said:

So did the lube stain the wood around the gate ?

That’s for darn sure! That was tight. Way to go blue. Congrats. 

[bleedinblue]

Lol.  The squeeze through the gate wasn't quite as tight as it looks in the picture.  It was certainly tight, but I had a couple or three inches of room on each side.  I could have gained more by taking the gate door off, but that wasn't needed.  

[estesbubba]

My butt cheeks were puckered just watching the pics! That worked like a champ. 

[Minnesota Steve]

Awesome... and it's nice the crate was built so you could slide the forks in lengthwise.   That sure made it easier than trying to drag it through the gate.

[bleedinblue]

If I was smarter, I would have indeed uncrated the Hammer while I still had the bobcat.  Apparently when you attach a couple of supplied bolts to the back of the Hammer, it is suggested that you use a pallet jack to lift the Hammer up by it's chassis and the bolts to get it off the crate and onto the floor.  That would have saved the ramp building I am doing now.    I've literally worked on it at about fifteen minutes at a time, but the mobile base is almost assembled under the Hammer and the ramp is almost built.  I'll have it on the floor in another fifteen minute session or two

Almost time to start thinking about electricity, but that'll be for another thread since this one should be dedicated to it's intended topic.

[Chestnut]

I have a few 1" 36" long wide 4/4 hardwood "levers" in my shop for moving my jointer sideways or shifting other machines around. These levers maybe have been scraps from a project.

[Mark J]

58 minutes ago, bleedinblue said:

Apparently when you attach a couple of supplied bolts to the back of the Hammer, it is suggested that you use a pallet jack to lift the Hammer up by it's chassis and the bolts to get it off the crate and onto the floor. 

Wouldn't it be nice for the manufacturer to go over the shipping container, un-crating and set up with the customer before the sale.

Laguna had an un-boxing and set up video for the P-Flux I bought and even though the pallet it came on was different from the video I had a pretty good idea what I was going to have to deal with.

[Robert Morse]

1 hour ago, bleedinblue said:

If I was smarter, I would have indeed uncrated the Hammer while I still had the bobcat.  Apparently when you attach a couple of supplied bolts to the back of the Hammer, it is suggested that you use a pallet jack to lift the Hammer up by it's chassis and the bolts to get it off the crate and onto the floor.  That would have saved the ramp building I am doing now.    I've literally worked on it at about fifteen minutes at a time, but the mobile base is almost assembled under the Hammer and the ramp is almost built.  I'll have it on the floor in another fifteen minute session or two

Almost time to start thinking about electricity, but that'll be for another thread since this one should be dedicated to it's intended topic.

I did the ramp route getting my a3-41 down. It worked fine, other than I needed three tries to get the area around clear enough to get the thing off the pallet with the pallet jack. It was bigger than it looked.

Your pallet looks way more beefy than mine... of course, UPS freight ripped one of the pallet skids off moving it, so the whole thing was sketchy anyway. Looking forward to the electricity thread. 

 

[Firehawk]

I would love to see your ramp that you built as I am preparing to do mine.

[Robert Morse]

1 hour ago, Firehawk said:

I would love to see your ramp that you built as I am preparing to do mine.

I had to modify the location of the skids on the pallet, because UPS freight ripped one of them clean off.  Also, due to the width of the pallet jack, I had to add some lumber to make the pallet surface wide enough.   I stacked up 2x lumber, and maybe some scrap ply, until the top of the ramp was close enough to the same height as the pallet.  I drove 3 or 4 screws thru the ramp into one of the skids.  Then I put a couple more pieces of 2x under the ramp, because it needed shoring up.  Once that was solid, I ran the pallet jack up, and pulled it off. It wasn't too bad.

 

 

[bglenden]

Probably overkill, but I ended up getting some brackets from Tractor Supply and attached some 2x10's (I think, maybe 2x12) to them and just rolled it off on the mobility kit. My delivery was a pallet on a pallet for some reason, so I had 8 or so inches to come down.

(I put an on-edge 2x4 under the ramp about half way down since I figured it would be too bendy otherwise).

 

Edited December 27, 2018 by bglenden
Mention 2x4

[bleedinblue]

I dont think I took any pictures of the ramp, and if I did I lost them with a phone/carrier switch.

I just used the 2x4's from the crate.  Two boards per side, four total and I rolled it down lengthwise because of how I assembled the mobile base.  Braced the underneath with more scrap 2x4's cut to the appropriate angle.  DON'T FORGET TO REMOVE THE BOLTS ON THE FLOOR OF THE CRATE.  That was the only real hangup (literally)

Doing it this way did cause it to high center for a bit.  I used a piece or 2x4 to lever it up.  When it got all four wheels on the ramp it rolled down perfectly.

No need to over think it really.