Converting a old Ford Explorer into a yard truck.
I took in a 80’s something (I think 83) Ford Explorer as a partial trade-in against a vehicle I had for sale, I didn’t really have a need for another truck but I figured it would be handy as a yard truck for moving and hauling materials around the property.
Then late last year I bid on and won a roadside trailer mounted message board for next to nothing, all I wanted out of that was the trailer, while decommissioning the trailer I discovered it used hydraulics’ to raise and lower the message board utilizing a 48″ × 1″ hydraulic piston powered by a 2500 PSI 12VDC Butcher Hydraulics power pack, the power pack was in of itself worth more than four times what paid for the trailer and became a integral part of improving the yard truck.
My plan was to install a 12′ 3″ × 3″ × ¼″ steel boom hinged at the base a little fore of the real axle, with a saddle welded to the rear bumper, it supported a 2.5″ bore, 20″ stroke, 1.125″ rod hydraulic cylinder.
At 2000 PSI that cylinder has a lifting force 9800 pounds, which translates to around 3500 pounds of lift at the end of the boom, more than enough for my needs.
However with so much weight pushing down on the rear bumper that would cause the lower part of the cylinder mount to bottom out on the ground, that wasn’t going to work, my solution was jack up the rear of the truck remove the rear tires and weld in 1″ x 1″ x ¾″ steel tube braces from the frame of the truck down to the top of the lower control arms of the rear suspension, that locked the suspension in it’s highest position.
That was yesterday afternoon and it was getting too hot to do anymore work.
This morning I took it for a test drove around the property running over anything I could find in my way and through any rut out there, the ride was extremely firm, too firm for street use, then I decided to really push it, I laid out a series of 4×4 wooden posts on the ground and ran over those at a rather good clip, but after going over the third board I heard a loud pop and the right real was leaning lower.
Himm.
Back in the garage I discovered the right upright had punched through the stamped metal lower control arm, that problem was solved by removing the braces, cutting them a inch shorter and welding a 2″ wide cross brace to the bottom of each one, that allowed the weight to be spread out over more of the control arm and it also provided me with more weld area assuring neither the upper or lower part of the braces could shear off and cause more problems.
And out for another test drive over the 4×4’s followed by a couple more runs a little faster each time, everything held fast the yard truck was back in service with a new hydraulic boom installed.
Note to self when doing similar testing in the future wear a hardhat.
Then it was time to test the boom.
In June of last year a 75 pine tree out front was hit by lightning, the strike blasted off a few large sections of bark and the tree died, it needed to be felled.
I did some measurements and calculations and determined I could drop it into the front yard between the oak trees lining the driveway and a mature oak tree centered in the north front yard, conversely I determined a error of +/- 5 degrees would drop the tree into either the oak trees lining the drive or into the mature oak tree in the yard.
We hired a professional who using a bucket truck brought the tree down properly with it all dropped in the front yard and away from everything, including a occupied Gopher Tortoise tunnel that he found nearby the tree, his fee $200 a very fair price for the amount of work he did.
But it was our job to dispose of the tree sections as that would have cost an additional $200.
And removing the 6′ sections of the trunk was one of the first jobs the new boom truck would be used for.
My first idea a few months back was drill a 2″ hole around 6″ in from the outside of the trunk, insert a snag hook tie it off to the rear bumper, it sort of worked, if I went fast enough the front of the trunk would lift off the ground and pull with a minimum of damage to the yard, but still too much damage for my wife.
Now I can lift each section of trunk off the ground, haul it back or brace it on the ground to be cut into sections which can be loaded into the incinerator and burned up.
Power pack.
Suspension brace.
Cylinder Yoke.
Front mount, the nut has been left out as I couldn’t properly torque the crossbolt with a lock washer as that made the uprights too tight, it will be replaced with a 1″ Nylock nut. I cross drilled the uprights and tapped them for Zerk fittings allowing me to pack the #8 grade thrust washers with grease on a regular basis, the cross brace it bolted through the floor and through two pre-existing holes in the Explorer’s frame. I didn’t really want to drill through the frame at that would require using a magnetic drill press and a 1 / ⅛ Cobalt drill. $$$
And the remote control, the up button powers a relay on the pump of the power pack and the lower button powers a solenoid on the power pack allowing the cylinder to drain back into the reservoir of the power pack.
