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Post by jason82 on Apr 17, 2018 7:19:45 GMT
So I typed in 2 ton engine crane into ebay, and a nice cheap one came up, ebay item number : 122994204233, a 2 ton crane in blue manufactured by Warmiehomy for £119.95 including delivery. So as crane hire by me is £42+vat per day for rental, I thought that I may aswell buy it, as I will need it more than once so it makes more sense to buy it. The crane turned up on time as requested, look at my beautiful blue crane !
(please note that the 2 blue legs were not fitted in this picture). So not off to a good start, I don't mind it, but its not what I ordered, also the parts were all badly scratched. So after spending around an hour building it, I took it out to the MX5 to lift the shell, hooked it all up properly, then for the big moment........ the crane does not work. The valves were fully closed, just not working. So I sent an email to the seller MY-HAPPYSHOP (53631), & two days later they offered me a partial refund for the badly scratched parts & mis matched coloured parts, after sending photographic evidence of the colour options ticked on the boxes. 2 boxes said blue & the third said red. They also asked for a video showing the crane not working, no problem again, I sent this straight away. Its now been a week, no partial refund & no replacement ram. They are also refusing to answer my emails, so I have contacted ebay to report them. In the mean time, I purchased a ram off ebay for £30, which came quickly just to get the job done. Please be extremely weary of this company ! the location is apparently Leeds, but the extremely bad grammer, sentences not making sence & the limited emails being sent to me at 4.30am in the morning suggest that this company is actually located elsewhere.
I have not left them feedback yet as I fear that my case will never get dealt with properly, but rest assured, as soon as this has been dealt with, they will get a real honest review.
Please be careful, I do not want anybody else to get caught out by this company.
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Post by casesensitive on Apr 17, 2018 8:59:15 GMT
Am I losing my mind or is the whole crane about 40% the size an engine crane should be? You'd struggle to get that over the bonnet of a Noddy car! It's like someone made a crane from an unscaled image of one, proportions are the same, but the size is miles off. I can't find a good image of the crane in Flickr now, but you get the idea from this on of the engine going in, the boom is higher than my head (5'10")  |
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Post by tojeiro on Apr 17, 2018 9:17:13 GMT
If you look at the seller page they are in China, probably explains the communication issues, you should check seller on eBay as item location can be misleading.  by -Tojeiro 74-I expect Leeds is just a warehouse and crane is coming in from overseas. They do this to make it look like UK made. I’d be pretty concerned using that crane if the guy sending it thought different colour parts was OK, maybe you got a 2 ton jib arm with a 1 ton frame 😬 As a recommendation for garage equipment SGS stuff is very robust and good price, especially if you can wait for special offers that come around very often. |
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Post by kiwicanfly on Apr 17, 2018 9:18:09 GMT
Am I losing my mind or is the whole crane about 40% the size an engine crane should be? Could be a really tall front door  Seriously I'd be wary of lifting anything near two tonnes with that. |
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Post by jason82 on Apr 17, 2018 9:32:28 GMT
It does look a little small. The main legs were not connected at the time. I bought a cheap one thinking that it would be alright, but upon looking at the crane when it arrived, It appears to rely heavily on the ram which is rated at 8 tons. The ram that I bought additionally to get me out of the hole was a direct replacement. If I had a bit more money available I would have bought a sealey one, or another named brand. The 1 ton crane was only £20 cheaper, so I thought that a 2 ton hoist would have been more substantial. Having learnt my lesson the hard way, I should have got a proper one like yours, I am only glad that the original ram did not fail while I was under it ! I have just received an email from the seller, they believe that the ram has no oil (plausible) & has only offered me a £5 refund to buy some hydraulic oil, & to compensate for the badly scratched parts and wrong colours. I have told them that they are having a laugh, the ram may have lost oil due to a seal failure or something else more serious. £5 wont even cover a litre of hydraulic fluid. I will keep you posted ! |
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Post by jason82 on Apr 17, 2018 9:49:28 GMT
Thanks for everyone's advice, not being a mechanic, I had never seen one in the flesh, only in pictures. Tojeiro, waaw ! That had never crossed my mind. How do I check if they have given me a 1 ton frame please ? Sounds like I gave had a really lucky escape. Hopefully this will be a lesson to someone else with no experience. You cant put a price on safety !
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Post by casesensitive on Apr 17, 2018 12:35:51 GMT
I learned the hard way on lots of the bits I picked up; buy cheap, buy twice. I took rented an engine crane for the weekend, and ended the Sunday with the engine very much still attached to the car  Bought a half-decent crane a week later for €189 delivered, which is still going strong today, though even dismantled and folded up takes up a good chunk of the corner of my garage. Going to lend it to a fellow builder 40km away for a year or so, hopefully I'll be in my own house and big garage by then. I've had 4 gear selectors, 4 rivnut or rivet insertion tools, 3 batteries, two oil-extractors, 3 3/8th" torque wrenches (including that broke on the first day, Sealey did't reply to my mail asking for a replacement) 3 jigsaws, dozens of broken drillbits and innumerable crappy masks, gloves and other PPE since replaced by 1 or two high quality And I sold it, but lost a few hundred on a MIG welder that needed to be a TIG welder really. It's been an expensive few years. There's a good post on here somewhere about the best and most useful tools you've bought, I would have foudn it useful at the beginning. |
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Post by calibuild on Apr 17, 2018 20:37:48 GMT
Craigslist, at least state side, generally has a few cranes that are reasonably priced. Picked mine up from there with a bad wheel. Ordered and replaced the wheel, thing is fantastic.
China works well for things that you dont need quickly, and it's hard for the quality to be truly bad. Purchased a few things off ebay from there and work very well.
Good luck with your build!
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Post by kiwicanfly on Apr 18, 2018 0:17:16 GMT
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Post by casesensitive on Apr 18, 2018 7:52:49 GMT
Holy cow that's some lump of a thing! All joking aside, mine was this or similar www.adverts.ie/power-tools/2-ton-folding-shop-crane-engine-hoist/6711640It's worth getting a higher-rated one; I only wanted to lift max 500kg, but at the max extension point of the boom. It's only rate to 2000kg 45cm or so from the jib, which is useless. 1000 about halfway down the arm etc. They're always shown with hook at furthest out point, which is often 25% of the stated max lift. I have used the crane to lift the remains of the donor car, as well as once to lift the whole heavy-end of my Rocker, with engine, so it's worth making sure it'll do it at a distance that works. |
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Post by tojeiro on Apr 18, 2018 8:47:14 GMT
Just another scary piece of info that not everyone is aware of but there in two CE marks in the world. The official European Conformity mark and the China Export mark The similarity is stunningly similar (make your own assumptions on the intention)  by -Tojeiro 74-Just something else to consider if you are buying something safety related. |
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