Hydraulic Ram Security Lock

Hi All
After the bad weekends weather meaning I was unable to get on with the jobs I had planned, I decided to spend the time in the workshop and make a security lock for the blade hydraulic ram on my digger.

These are commercially available but very expensive to purchase. So with some spare workshop time and an idea in my head the clamp was completed.

The main body was made up of 3 piece. 1/8" thick wall tube 1-3/4" diameter, cut in half and two side pieces also 1/8" welded to form a u-shape. This was then strengthened by forming two 1" x 1/4" steel strips to fit around the outer edge of the U shape body piece. Simply heated and bent around a former of the correct outer dimeter of the tube and cut to length, Then Tig-welded in place.

The lock pin was made from a piece of stainless steel 20mm diameter. 10.5mm hole drilled centrally to accept a container style padlock with 10mm bolt. The ends were drilled and tapped M6 and a cross hole drilled for a stainless cable. (Both ends didn't need to be tapped:smash:)
The cable is held in place in the cross hole with a grub screw and the other end of the cable formed into a loop and crimped so it could be attached the main body. The stainless cable is purely to prevent the lock pin from being lost.

Coat of paint and the clamp is ready to be a deterrent. It simple prevents the blade from being lifted making the digger more difficult to move.

The photos below show the clamp manufacture and in situ on ram.

Attachment 48414 Attachment 48415 The tube at the top was turned to a length the same size as the inner diameter of the tube and used as a spacer to help align the side plates when welding to keep everything parallel and square.

Attachment 48416Attachment 48417 Once welded a 13/16" hole was drilled to accept the 20mm locking pin.

Attachment 48421 Attachment 48422 Cable to prevent loss of pin

Attachment 48418 Attachment 48419 Attachment 48420 Painted and ready to use one padlock arrives

Attachment 48423 Attachment 48424 Ram extended to lower the blade and lock in place so hydraulic ram can't be operated to raise blade.

This was a nice project to build and thank you for viewing
The Home Engineer

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Thanks thehomeengineer! We've added your Hydraulic Ram Security Lock to our Miscellaneous category,
as well as to your builder page: thehomeengineer's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

<div id="blocks"> <div class="block b1 pngfix"> <div class="bimg"> <div> <a href="https://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-hydraulic-ram-security-lock"> <img src="/uploads/272441/homemade-hydraulic-ram-security-lock.jpeg"/> </a> </div> </div> <div class="head pngfix"></div> <div class="left pngfix"></div> <div class="right pngfix"></div> <div class="blockover b1 pngfix"> <div class="title"> <a href="https://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-hydraulic-ram-security-lock">Hydraulic Ram Security Lock</a> <span> by <a href="https://www.homemadetools.net/builder/thehomeengineer">thehomeengineer</a></span> </div> <div class="tags">tags: <a href='https://www.homemadetools.net/tag/hydraulic'>hydraulic</a>, <a href='https://www.homemadetools.net/tag/lock'>lock</a> </div> </div> </div> </div>
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With so many agricultural equipment being lost to thieves, I can’t help wondering whether the manufactures are charging too much! But perhaps they are using special alloys, etc.