[Foley]

I too had been dabbling around with the idea of getting a shop crane/cherry picker. About the time I was doing the shopping, Fetch ordered his and it wasn' much more than a week later that I decided to also order the 2 ton Harbor Freight Deluxe Racing Shop Crane. It should do everything I need it to do with heavy "stuff" including big tractor wheels, small engines, my Aunt Bertha and I figure it would probably move a 305E if you were careful. Harbor Freight was also offering the "Once in a life Time Sale", and I also found a 25% off coupon, so there ya go. Bout $170 out the door.

The steel framing and the welds and the fact that it has cast steel wheels instead of rubber/plastic are all a plus for that price, but I wasn't real happy with the low grade bolts. I mentioned this to Fetch while he was quietly waiting for his damaged box of parts to be replaced. So I went on a search for some higher grade metric bolts. Many of the assembly bolts are metric grade 4.8 and a few of the bigger ones are metric grade 8.8. So I figured to bump them all up to 8.8 and 10.9 respectfully. I found the info I wanted on a metric grade chart that lists their stensil strength. I don't know much about "stensil", but I'm all about having "strength" for this project. After many days of looking I can tell you that these bolts are NOT to be found at Ace Hardware nor NAPA nor Home Depot nor Lowes nor Tractor Supply. But I did find all that I wanted and more by going to

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. They have it all. Sizes, strengths, different plating and fairly cheap shipping. I ordered up a replacement batch of all thirty four bolts and it came to about $50. Since the colors of this Racing Shop Crane are Grey and black, I went for a complete set of flat black coated racing bolts, and got some lock washers for the set, as none come with the Harbor Freight package.

There is one more thing I changed somewhat, and if I can ever figure out how to post decent pictures, I'll chime in and show you. It's a feature that would enhance any decent Racing Shop Crane. In conclusion I'll say it's really a sad thing to let a persons mind flounder around on a 4 day rainy stretch with no project to focus on. Look what happens.