I completed a little project today that was a lot of fun for me despite how minor it was. I used to work in a friend's custom fab shop, doing minor metal work. I don't hardly do any these days but I really enjoy it when I do, even if it's a really small job like this one.
Recently, I was looking for my small off road shovel in my garage. I couldn't find it for the life of me. I looked for like an hour. Finally, deciding it wasn't worth my time to keep looking, I bought a new one for $15 during a recent Lowe's run. Then I realized I didn't actually have a good place to keep it in my truck. I didn't have a mount for it, and to be honest I had the old shovel banging around in the back of the truck for most of the previous two years. So I hatched a plan to build a shovel mount, since I was doing some work in the back of the truck anyway (cleaning and greasing the drawer system).
First, I picked up a piece of 1 1/2" flat stock from Home Depot, then tried in vain to find a couple of Quick Fists around town. Cabela's used to carry them, but not anymore it seems. So I had to order them from Amazon instead. I also stopped by Ace and picked up 2 1/2" x 1" carriage bolts with matching wing nuts, and waited. My plan was to build a mount that attached to my Hi-Lift and held the shovel next to and slightly below it.
Once I had all the parts in, I went out in the garage today and started working. I first cut the flat stock into two 6 1/2" pieces, knowing they would be trimmed a little, the the shorter length helped me mock everything up. I did some measuring and drilled a 9/16" hole on one end.
Once I cleaned that up, I used zip ties to temporarily mount the Quick Fists and play around with where the shovel would mount. I used the carriage bolts to mount the flat stock to the staff of the jack. They work perfectly for this duty, because carriage bolts have a square shoulder on them, like this.
This little shoulder actually keeps them from spinning in the holes in the jack, which allowed me to use a regular wing nut on one side without having to hold the bolt.
After fiddling around with the mounting I ended up deciding that mounting above the shovel would be a lot better, so I changed the plan a bit. After another run to Ace to get hardware to attach the Quick Fists, I did a little more measuring and drilled some 1/4" holes to mount them.
I did another test fit and liked what I saw, so I removed the Quick Fists and cut the brackets down to the correct length before cleaning up the holes and the edges.
Once that was done, I had all the parts for my shovel mounts.
I couldn't resist, so I threw them on the jack staff with the shovel to see how they would look when everything was all finished. The brackets are very simple, but look pretty good in my opinion.
And they hold the shovel really rock solid. Couldn't ask for better.
They only took about an hour to do and I'm really happy with the result, considering they only cost me about $30 and very little time. It's a simple little project, but it put a big smile on my face seeing the final result. Just what I was looking for! Also, if I ever need to, I can just unbolt the Hi-Lift and pull both out of the truck together if it looks like it's going to be a lengthy recovery.
Pretty happy with them. Once I was done taking photos, I pulled them off and sanded them down. Just waiting for warm weather to get them painted and they'll be done.
