Home-Built “Mower Lift” Makes Repair Work Easier
“At 74 years old I didn’t like the idea of laying down on
the floor to service my riding mower, so I built a wooden mower lift that lets
me work from a standing position, without having to bend over at all. I can’t
believe how much easier it is to work on the mower,” says Garry Kilby, Marion,
N.C.
Kilby has 46 years of experience as a machinist, and says he was careful to build the lift so that it’s strong and safe to use. He designed it for his Troy-Bilt riding mower equipped with a 42-in. deck.
The lift measures 6 ft. long, 4 ft. wide and 10 ft. high and stands on four 4 by 4 pressure treated wooden posts. A pair of electric hoists, mounted on overhead tracks, are connected by cable and chain to a wooden platform that supports the mower. The platform is open in the middle and consists of two 2 by 12 pressure treated boards bolted onto a pair of 4 by 4’s with 1/4-in. thick angle iron supports. A heavy duty chain is attached to both ends of each support, with cable running from the middle of the chain through a double pulley system and up to the hoist. Removable wooden “stops” on the boards keep the mower’s wheels in place.
Kilby
drives the mower up onto the boards and uses carriage bolts to secure the
stops. Then he uses a pair of remote controls to raise the mower, high enough
to let him slide long steel support pipes through pairs of heavy duty eye bolts
attached to the corner posts. The eye bolts are spaced about 1 ft. apart,
allowing him to work on the mower at 2 different heights.
“I wanted
the pipes to support the mower, because I didn’t want to take a chance that the
hoists would ever fail,” says Kilby. “The upper height support works great to sharpen or replace the
blades on the deck. I use the lower height to grease the mower or replace the
drive belts.”
If Kilby wants, he can remove the pipes and
lower the mower onto a 3-ft. tall portable workbench that’s designed to fit
under the lift. “With the workbench I can unbolt the deck and roll it away into
another part of the shop,” he says. “The workbench also comes in handy to work
on other projects in my shop.”
The hoists
ride on tracks made from 1 1/2 by 3/16-in. thick square tubing. To help keep
the mower level as it’s being raised, Kilby bolted vertical angle irons onto
both ends of the angle iron supports and then bolted pairs of small caster
wheels to them. “The wheels are located about 1/4 in. away from the corner
posts. If the platform starts to tilt as it’s raised or lowered, the wheels
will contact the posts and roll up or down to level the platform,” explains
Kilby.
“I
installed the eye bolts securely by drilling holes through the corner posts and
then adding big washers and nuts on the outside. I used threaded bolts with hex
heads and big washers to secure the platform to the 2 by 12’s.”
Kilby’s
total cost was less than $1,000. “I bought the hoists, which are rated at 440
lbs., at Harbor Freight for $100 apiece. I paid $10 apiece for the chains,
which are each rated at 2,500 lbs.”
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Garry Kilby, 17 Clinton Lane, Marion, N.C. 28752 (ph 828 527-6237).