O.T. Can I use a hydraulic cylinder for a in ground lift?

I build live steam locomotives and used to have a couple of in ground service station hoists made by Rotary Lift to lift the locomotives from the ground up to my truck bed and also I was able to use them as a turntable to turn the locomotives end for end. They were used when I bought them and after 30 years one of them rusted through the outer wall. I replaced them with a sizzer lift but it just isn't as handy as the old hoists. I think these hoists are a thing of the past and finding one or two will be next to impossible

The question is Surplus Center has a hydraulic cylinder with a 5" hollow rod with a .343 wall thickness and the outer housing has a 5 1/2" I.D with a 5/16" wall thickness. Stroke length is 90" and it is a single acting cylinder. I am thinking of buying one of these and digging a hole and mounting it vertical in the ground with concrete around it. I only need 48" of stroke maximum so the rod would only be half way up the cylinder in the raised position. I would mount a 10 foot long 8" I beam on the top of the rod laid flat which will give me my 7 1/2" gauge I need for the locomotive wheel flanges. My biggest locomotive is a 3 3/4" scale locomotive that weighs right a 2000 pounds. Would this cylinder support the off center load as the locomotive is rolled off the hoist onto my truck and would it allow me to rotate it? I would only rotate it when the locomotive is centered on the hoist which would have fairly equal weight on each end. I am sure it must have some internal bushings that ride against the cylinder wall to keep everything centered.

Thanks
Ken

I'd say OK but... Buy a cylinder with a welded blind end of you're going to bury in in concrete and hard pipe that end. Slobber plenty of that black preservative and landscape fabric on all externals/ Install a stop tube to limit lift to where you want. Also form out around the rod end so you can service the internals, Bury it in crushed rock and install a pump in a parallel sump . Check soil chemistry and seasonal water table change? Um - I'm sure there;s plenty of factors to dither over.

Shaybuilder said:

Stroke length is 90" and it is a single acting cylinder. I am thinking of buying one of these and digging a hole and mounting it vertical in the ground with concrete around it. I only need 48" of stroke maximum so the rod would only be half way up the cylinder in the raised position.

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Arse-saver numbah one, the half-extended.

Any chance the ones they make for trucks are compatible with your old one, one unit at a time? Not for parts - as a whole new one, dropped-in?

Traditional Inground | Rotary Lift

I would mount a 10 foot long 8" I beam on the top of the rod laid flat which will give me my 7 1/2" gauge I need for the locomotive wheel flanges. My biggest locomotive is a 3 3/4" scale locomotive that weighs right a 2000 pounds. Would this cylinder support the off center load as the locomotive is rolled off the hoist onto my truck

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There need not be any such load. Place a pair of jackstands just aft of the end of the truck before rolling off-centre. As I'd bet you HAVE been doing..


BTW.. how good is the DIRT. At taking a tilt. Or not? I've been to Pisa, yes..and not-only..

and would it allow me to rotate it? I would only rotate it when the locomotive is centered on the hoist which would have fairly equal weight on each end. I am sure it must have some internal bushings that ride against the cylinder wall to keep everything centered.

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Surely. Probably not to the extent Rotary lift did their ones on the guide bushing life expectacy, but you probably don't need 30 more years service, and you are starting with new, not used. Seal replacement would be a nuisance? Crane to pull the thing? Pass. I'd want a crane instead! 5 Ton GI wrecker. Do a Hell of a lot more useful stuff than I could with a fixed-location hole in the ground.

Weigh this as an option that needs no 90" hole bored and lined.

Given you HAVE the lift-only, just not the roundhouse function already.:

3200 lbs avoir or so, not 2,000. Two 10EE, one on Northern's orange 8-BB steel roller skates, three points, the other on Northern's Urethane roller purple ones, three points.

Auto trolley jack, applied, each skate aimed on the circumference of a circle, one-man pivot "in Place" on an imaginary axis in a small shop. Seriously. I have needed to do this OFTEN, what with motor experiments, and it is fast and easy.

The steel skates need smooth concrete, I have that, Mark One human hand works fine.
The urethane ones need more muscle, heavy wooden pry-lever, actually, but can work on the asphalt driveway.

Circles, of course, are nowhere NEAR all they can do. They are rolled on angles, and crabbed diagonally into and out of their 'holes' even more often. Skates are also light enough for take-with. OTHER ones. Got lots of 'em. Vestil 10,000 lbs "turntable top" array wit handlebar as well. Makes a great tricycle rig combo. The 10EE's ones are attached, permanent-like.

Rig your beams atop, total weight locomotive plus beams is right about what I have with each 10EE already.

You DO need "level' 'coz they DO roll easily, gravity don't take no coffee breaks. G'Dad was foreman of a B&O roundhouse - he had other hands, plenty of them - you may be working alone? Can't scotch a load easily. Arms are too short.

OTOH.. no hole to hire bored. No worry about unseen rust.

Non-lifting turntable means you still have to do the lift. But you can pick which end.

On which score.. is there no space to move the TRUCK to the other end instead of swinging the loco? And - if not - would creating the pad for that have all-year benefits a 90"-plus hole would not have?

Construction might be about the same money, so long as you have the area available.

Yeah "Captain Obvious" etc.. but you having HAD the Rotary lift so long wudda left no motivation to change what JF worked, so.. new game, now? New ones gotta be costlier now than used ones, 30 years back.

Oh.. BTW .. Northern's purple skates?

Factory configured for building a "magic carpet" or several "carpets", of paralleled and serially interlocked skates. Just drop in place to as many wide and as many long as you can afford. Marvelous for load-spreading across a hot summer's softening asphalt driveway when a pallet jack wants to sink in, or even across plywood laid over common dirt.

2CW

up to date and osha proved probably not. but have you have ever tried to bend 5 inch stuff? 2000 lbs wouldn't make it sweat you could do that with 4 harbor freight jack carts I bought the cylinders that were 6" bore and 4.5 hollow shaft and was pushing 325000 with 4 of them shorter stroke . try it and see, some kind of a guide frame would make it bullet proof of course

Problem I see is you really should make some sort of safety so the load will not drop on your feet if the plumbing springs a leak. Maybe you are just replacing the cylinder and reusing all the existing stuff including safety.
Bill

Bill D said:

Problem I see is you really should make some sort of safety so the load will not drop on your feet if the plumbing springs a leak. Maybe you are just replacing the cylinder and reusing all the existing stuff including safety.
Bill

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? He's a railroader. 2,000 Avoir drops on your feet, you just KICK it!

Hydraulic tube in ground lifts are still made. Not totally uncommon over here. Used units in good order surface on E-Bay occasionally for around £700 - £1,200. Contemplating such myself but further away than I'd like for inspection and do I wan't the installation mess! Becoming popular again in posh main dealer workshops. As I recall it new prices are moderately high but not stupid for European made gear. Various Chinese suppliers but who knows.

I'd be very wary of using an ordinary hydraulic cylinder. Proper thing has special valving limiting speed and internal gubbins to avoid rapid collapse. Failure has been known. That said I doubt if you'd put the hours on it for it to be an issue.

You have a scissors unit so why not just put a turntable on top?

Concerning safety. Most (all) scissors units are not designed to pick up the load immediately from full collapse and will be seriously overloaded in the joints if you do so. Generally need 6" or so of unloaded movement but check the book. See Scissor lift failure in motor vehicle repair facility. Eeek! Probably not exactly the same as yours but basic geometry is same on all styles.

Clve.

Monarchist said:

? He's a railroader. 2,000 Avoir drops on your feet, you just KICK it!

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BTW.. I don't suppose it stays in the truck? Railroader or not, 2,000 lbs is no one-hand lift-out.

What of a 3,000 lb capacity lift, ten foot max height, and tow-behind?

KD's claim to usefulness, decades with rental firms, was the fixed hook, non-telescoping boom, with full load rating at the tip, not collapsed to but 12 inches.

http://www.icfinc.com/engine-lifts-tip-tow-3000.html#features

Still US made, even. There must be competition?

I'd add an outrigger, as I have to my lowly 2-ton, to prevent side tipping.

2,000 avoir is not that much of a load. Lightest item I have is the 1850 or so lbs Sheldon 12" Shaper. That was lifted out of the pickup with the smaller KD Bluebird.

I'd want a pilot operated check valve directly in the blind end connection. A plus to the guide frame is that it could be built to accommodate safety pins. I'm thinking telescoping tubes where the inner tube is cross drilled for a sufficiently sized pin. 1" would be provide more than ample safety factor.

Sent from my SM-G930R4 using Tapatalk

You have to put some numbers together as to how much off center the center of mass will be worst case. Then you need to apply a factor of safety. My swag is the cylinder rod won't support sufficient off center load as to provide a reasonable safety factor.

Personally, I'd rather have a forklift if you have the room.

In ground lifts are still available new. They take up much less room than the above ground lifts, and offer ease of access to the lower body you don't get with an above ground lift.

A moveable counter weight seems a plus - home being near center. Scoot it out as loco heads to truck going the other way

I am assuming the 10 foot is centered on cyl

Over sixty years ago L. B. Andersen had one out in front - valve plumbing still bearing witness. A wonderful K.R. Wilson - though you could not swing it very far.

2124 N. 5th in Waco, TX

Google Maps

Been there.

I worked in a 1940's garage, that had a in floor lift, one cylinder movable in a trench, the other fixed.

We retrofitted them with normal 2500 psi cylinders (IIRC 5"-6"dia) hung them inside the old low pressure cylinders, removed the air over oil tank at one end of the trough, and installed
a 5 h.p. motor and pump.

We did it for the coming DEP regulations for underground tanks
(yes they consider them underground tanks) so the oil
volume went down low enough to keep us out of trouble,
as well as the large air usage from filling the air/oil tank
every time you wanted "up", drop it down a bit ?
Have to bleed all that air off.

"They" make automobile lifts that are like Big Joe powered walk-behind forklifts. They simulate two-post lift action, but they only have one post, and can be moved around with the car on it. A device like that could have your tracks built-on, but could also lift other things, move them around, pick from above, not just below, and would be moveable in the shop for space conservation. Also would likely sell well when you're done with it. I'm assuming you have tracks in the back of your truck, so pick it up, line it up, and toot the whistle...

Chip

What are you doing ?

Lift ?

To be true, you need a pit.

And a roundhouse.

digger doug said:

And a roundhouse.

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Not as far-fetched as that. There are hundreds, if not thousands of them installed all over Hong Kong. Space is really tight out that way.

A car or cab-over short-coupled goods vehicle drives in, is already on a large diameter steel plate, rollers under, no pit.

Electric motor rotates the plate+vehicle to put the rear to the dock, or nose toward a ramp to a carpark - which is not necessarily at a 180 degree point. May be 90, may be an odd angle.

Vehicle may need another move to point it at the exit, re-enters the street, nose-first. Cheap, cheerful, works every day, all day, all year, and lasts a long time. Would have to leave home without it, just to get foodstuffs alone to millions of people.

No "lift" involved, though. For that, we have... (vehicle elevators, carparks that stack.. etc.)

Digger Doug mentioned environmental factors. Here is more. Hydraulic elevators with in ground jacks are required to be inside containment vessels, usually with monitoring equipment. I believe the same is true of automotive lifts using air/oil systems. Before you stick a hydraulic cylinder in the ground consider the cost of remediation if you do have a leak.

Illinoyance said:

Digger Doug mentioned environmental factors. Here is more. Hydraulic elevators with in ground jacks are required to be inside containment vessels, usually with monitoring equipment. I believe the same is true of automotive lifts using air/oil systems. Before you stick a hydraulic cylinder in the ground consider the cost of remediation if you do have a leak.

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Yup, by placing the new cylinder inside the old low pressure cylinder, the old outer casing (cleaned out) is the secondary containment for the new system.

I have one we removed from our home track, it is located in Roseville ca

Monarchist said:

Not as far-fetched as that. There are hundreds, if not thousands of them installed all over Hong Kong. Space is really tight out that way.

A car or cab-over short-coupled goods vehicle drives in, is already on a large diameter steel plate, rollers under, no pit.

Electric motor rotates the plate+vehicle to put the rear to the dock, or nose toward a ramp to a carpark - which is not necessarily at a 180 degree point. May be 90, may be an odd angle.

Vehicle may need another move to point it at the exit, re-enters the street, nose-first. Cheap, cheerful, works every day, all day, all year, and lasts a long time. Would have to leave home without it, just to get foodstuffs alone to millions of people.

No "lift" involved, though. For that, we have... (vehicle elevators, carparks that stack.. etc.)

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Well Bill, I was thinking back to my childhood, when we went to
see a friend (had to be 80 at that time) that was into those
"Ride on size" model trains.
He owned the 2 lots next to him in town, had a pond, bridges,
and a roundhouse, and in the garage a proper elevated set
of rails to approximate a proper pit.

All to proper scale.

digger doug said:

All to proper scale.

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Funny you should mention 'scale'.. Started out as a kid with 'the usual'.. a Lionel "O" gauge 'set'.. envied friends who had half that scale "HO" because they could get more interesting "stuff" onto the same max-allowed 4' x 8' sheet of plywood...

At some point, I saw a wealthier model railroaders rig - an "N" gauge diorama down inside glass-topped coffee table.. lusted after "N" gauge instead..and about the same time, through Dad's Day Job, was exposed to "proper" US Coast & Geodetic Survey 7 1/2 minute topo maps.. and realized that even with "N" gauge, I'd need an area the size of a whole County even to model a small regional railroad "to scale".

..and did something else for a hobby..

The "mechanisms" of it all remained of interest, of course.

Ultimately, I was to find myself making 'new' or refurbishing quite a lot of parts for railroads. "Over the rail" sizes as well as mine-service and inside the mine.

All at "1:1" or "full scale" of course. By then, I was being paid for it, but it wasn't the same thing, somehow, even so. Or maybe BECAUSE I was being paid, not doing it simply because I wanted to do. And was able to do.