Hi All,
I needed to get my truck into the garage this weekend to do some work, but I found I had too much space taken up with motors on separate stands. I've been kicking around in my head a way to get four motors on a pallet, letting me move them around easily with my pallet jack, and I finally had the motivation to do it.
I started with a nice heavy oak pallet. The load from the motors is concentrated on the three pallet beams, but when lifting with a jack, you're lifting in between the beams, and the contact points generate some pretty high forces.
I used an 11 degree angle for each of the vertical posts. I originally based the design on my 70 hp motors which I figured would have been larger than the two cylinder 40's or 50's. However, while smaller, the nose of the 2 cyl's sticks out farther than the triples. This rack won't be able to accommodate two 50's across from each other. I would need to move the verticals at least another 3" apart. There were no design plans, just started putting things together as I went.
With 2x4 posts and plywood braces on the sides, and an additional 2x4 brace in the middle, the stand is very sturdy. There isn't any side-to-side movement and the whole thing stands up really well. This was made up of mostly extra pieces of wood and plywood I had around. I did buy new 2x4's for the posts which ran me about $10. I added the piece of luan underneath first to prevent any small parts or screws from falling between the pallet slats, but it isn't necessary.
It makes a great storage stand and allows me to move all four motors to an outside shed using our tractor with forks attached. I will strap the motors together before moving that way though.
Two of the motors on the rack are for my boats, the '92 60 hp and the '82 70. The others are in the process of being repaired for sale.
I needed to get my truck into the garage this weekend to do some work, but I found I had too much space taken up with motors on separate stands. I've been kicking around in my head a way to get four motors on a pallet, letting me move them around easily with my pallet jack, and I finally had the motivation to do it.
I started with a nice heavy oak pallet. The load from the motors is concentrated on the three pallet beams, but when lifting with a jack, you're lifting in between the beams, and the contact points generate some pretty high forces.
I used an 11 degree angle for each of the vertical posts. I originally based the design on my 70 hp motors which I figured would have been larger than the two cylinder 40's or 50's. However, while smaller, the nose of the 2 cyl's sticks out farther than the triples. This rack won't be able to accommodate two 50's across from each other. I would need to move the verticals at least another 3" apart. There were no design plans, just started putting things together as I went.
With 2x4 posts and plywood braces on the sides, and an additional 2x4 brace in the middle, the stand is very sturdy. There isn't any side-to-side movement and the whole thing stands up really well. This was made up of mostly extra pieces of wood and plywood I had around. I did buy new 2x4's for the posts which ran me about $10. I added the piece of luan underneath first to prevent any small parts or screws from falling between the pallet slats, but it isn't necessary.
It makes a great storage stand and allows me to move all four motors to an outside shed using our tractor with forks attached. I will strap the motors together before moving that way though.
Two of the motors on the rack are for my boats, the '92 60 hp and the '82 70. The others are in the process of being repaired for sale.
