Update.
Seriously? Its June already?
Not much progress.
Found a broken wheel speed sensor, hope that fixes the ABS light.
Found a bad alternator, rebuild was cheap. Adding a third battery for truck as backup capacity, have to move a breaker to make it secure-able.
Found a cracked radiator fan, have a new clutch and fan to swap on.
(Very pleased at how easy it was to R&R the alternator!)
12 foot ramps have arrived from Discount Ramp. Took advantage of 15% Memorial Day sale, got the 24 inch pinned aluminum brackets, and Mcmaster Carr brought me 24x5x5 square tubing to have my TIG guy weld it up. These will fasten to my 6 ft liftgate, close to the truck.
GREAT NEWS!
The sticker with liftgate limits on the side of the truck, and advertising for the truck when said a 3300 lb liftgate. I identified it visually as an ILK-33 from looking up MBB/Palfinger-Interlift products.
It occurred to me that they make 4400, 5500, and 6500 lb versions, with decks up to 84 inches. Might I be able to order some "TILT" cylinders from the 4400, 5500 or 6600 editions and "get by"?
I went and measured the arms on my lift to see from parts PDFs which cylinders I was likely to have...and if upgrades were possible.... DIY sort of thing.
Low and behold, the riveted on tag that has the model # and serial # shows I actually have an ILK-44. Better yet, ALL the hydraulic parts, lift and tilt cylinders and pumps etc, all the pins, bearing and everything other than the actual arms and platform are the same as the ILK-55.... and probably possibly, only the actual platform is built to be "stronger" in the 55. I didn't luck out all the way and get arms that are found on the 6600 version, so I can't use its cylinders....
But I don't think I need to!
The ILK-44/55 (follow me) is rated to lift full capacity at 3 feet. So, my hydraulics are "OK" handling 5500x3 or 16,500 ft-lb of torque for tilting.....My actual ILK44 4400 x 3 = 13,200 ft lb of torque available.
The gate with ramps can easily lift the front half of the car up with ramps on ground supporting 1/2 the weight. Then I can advance the front wheels up onto the truck. Now the rear wheels are about 8 feet back from truck. If my 1/2 car weight and ramps are 1500lbx8 feet away, I'm only asking the gate to tilt and use torque of 12,000 ft-lb. Well within limits of the 5500 version, and even within the 13,200 torque of my actual ILK-44 specifications......
I think, that, I may have an easy solution now.... I'll have a shop cut these ramps in half and shorten the knife edge, rebuild the bottom of the knife edge to be rounded so it can slide back and forth across ground... and it will have a heavy duty hinge mid position that will simply allow lifting... then fold up, store on the ramp, and there is still plenty of liftgate space between the 24 inch sections to allow rolling on and lifting stuff up to the truck....
Sometimes, you get lucky. Will supply some images soon, and hopefully soon some updates on actually loading in the car successfully without goofy jacks, stabilizers, electric scissors or whatever goofy winch ideas I had.
stay tuned. (comments?)
(The ILK-33 I thought I had was only rated 3300 at 2 feet, so it had at most 6600 ft-lb of torque available... these larger series, 44/55 are spec-ed to their rating at 3 feet... a huge difference for me. Sometimes, man, you just get lucky?