Last night I was going to go ahead, and get my motorcycle engine up on the cradle so I could see what I was dealing with in terms of size. Unfortunately, when I moved the cherry picker with the engine over to the cradle, there was no way I could get the engine in place without some gymnastics. The main reason for this, was that the legs of the cherry picker would not fit under the lower longitudinal beam that separates the upright beams on the cradle. I decided I was going to have to break down and do some modifications to the cradle. I decided the beast thing to do would be to remove the lower longitudinal beam on the cradle, and replace it with some rectangular tube placed higher up on the uprights so the cherry picker legs could slide right under it. I would also remove the two lower triangulation members, and I would flip them upside down so the would intercept the new rectangular tube longitudinal members.
At this point I was thankful for all the trips I took to the flea market buying tools.
This project took most of last night and a few hours tonight, but it is now done. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. The modified cradle also has improved torsional stiffness because before the torsional stiffness was only provided by the longitudinal channel member. The two rectangular tube sections display noticeably more torsional stiffness.
Once the cradle was put together I pulled out the cherry picker again and got the engine in place. The cradle seems to take the load no problem. That engine looks alot bigger when it is at working height.
Here you can see the engine, and the rear portion of an ATV I will use for the rear suspension. The legs of the cherry picker fit under there no problem. This is nice because now I should be able to align the hook of the cherry picker with the CG of my motorcycle car very safety and easily. I am glad I took the time to do this.
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