Rotary Lift Plate holding clamps.

Had some down time the other day to make a little upgrade to my lift . As much as I love my lift the rear solid plate likes to kick back on me quite often .When it does I have to pull the machine ahead and readjust the plate and retry again .  The lift was retro fitted into the existing shop and the shop floor is not quite level where the lift is and may be one of the issues . We also have mostly AWD equipment because of the steep hills we have to mow and now I'm thinking it may be part of the problem of why it wants to kick one side out  . I had put a post on one of the tech sites about using rope ratchets to stop the movement of the plate. The mechanics on Golftechs showed  how they dealt with this small annoyance .One of the techs had a great idea and had drill a hole in his side plate and welded a nut over the hole and used a bolt to pinch it in place . So this is what I came up with and think it will work well for me in my shop. 

I'm going to use 2 for each plate  5/8 nut and bolts .My decision to use 2 bolt was so that the plate can't shift to one side . It will make it more stable and twice the holding power with less force . At least that's my idea .  

 Flipping the plate over I could easily weld the nuts to the bottom corners of the plate .

 Only takes a few miutes to do all 4 .

 Found some scrap 3/8 rod to cut up to make T handles .

 Weld to the top of the bolt head .

 Cleaned them up with a wire brush and some brake clean .

 Then painted them up .I had to reattach my head saver styrofoam (which I tested a few times along with some of the staff ) .Also this plate pretty much stays near the up rights most of the time so that the canopy and ROPS will clear the overhead bar . I use it in two other locations on the lift bar and it should still be easy to move with the T bolts backed off .

Doesn't take much force to hold it in place now but the true test will be this summer . I did crank on them pretty good and could see the plate actually move so it's going to get a good bite if needed .  Hopefully this will be one more thing to save some time . As a mechanic on a golf course you want to make things run as smoothly as possible to free up what little time you have in mid season . 

 

Update: Had the 4300 d and then the 5410  on the lift a few times recently and it worked flawlessly . Didn't budge and the wheels land square on the plate every time .

This was a quick fix to my problem . If you have the large taps it is thick enough to drill through and tap a thread to install the bolt . It will give the same effect .