Hydraulic Ram Security Lock

[thehomeengineer]

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)
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.

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.

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

Cable to prevent loss of pin

Painted and ready to use one padlock arrives

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