lift-crane for trailer

I thought I would put this to you folks out there in in computerland.
I want to build a crane on the deck of a gooseneck trailer to lift items from the ground onto the trailer deck, specifically an Oliver 3 bottom trailer plow. I want to be able to take the plow to plow days about 2 hours away. I guess it should be able to lift 2500 lbs.
I had 2 trains of thought, One was to use a hydraulic lift and the other was to use an electric winch. The hydraulic would have to raise the boom while the winch would not have to have the boom raise, only swing sideways. Ideally, a 180 degree swing would be best.
Does anyone have one of these mounted on a trailer or a truck? What would be better?
thanks guys,
Cal

A friend of mine collects junk from various places, and he has a hydraulic pump and ram mounted at the rear of the truck bed, in the outer corner. He hooks onto say an engine block, then pumps the thing until it raises the heavy object, and then he can swing/pivot the whole thing around, and deposit the object in the bed of his truck. The pump and ram look just like one from a hydralic jack from an engine crane, as used by car mechanics, or who-ever.
NOTE: If you use the electric winch plan, you could mount the winch on the bottom of the boom assembly, so it could turn with the boom. The electric cable should be flexible enough to turn with the boom.
Your idea has many merits, including the omission of much heavy lifting that you would have to do, if you didn't work up your idea.
On another note, one day, i bought a wrecked Ranger pickup, and had to flat-bed it home about 20 miles. A friend had a beaver-tail equipment trailer, so he and i took it to where the truck was, and he used one of those Harbor Freight electric winches, and pulled the truck right up and into the trailer, with seemingly little effort. And, operated it with a 12 volt truck battery!
So go-follow your plans! It sounds good to me.
by: Rusty Jones, the mower man.

Have you ever seen the gantery crane rigs out the back of the trailer? Basically an overhead trolley that sticks out the back a couple feet, lift & pull it forward.

I like your front mount crane, until I see close to a ton & 1/2. That is a lot of weight to have out to the side and hanging somewhat high, you might want to practice on that & be sure the laws of physics don't pull the trailer over.... Depends on your trailer, I guess.

--->Paul

You have a very good idea. Do you have any ideas on what it will swivel on? The idea of bolting an old tractor rear axle housing to the bed with the axle pointing up came to my head. Maybe one off an SC Case? The 2500 pounds would rotate pretty easy on those tapered roller bearings. Slip a triple wall pipe over the axle and there you have your post. Downfall would be the bell of the axle housing taking up some room on the trailer. Let us know what you come up with. Jim

I built this crane from junk around 1990. It's moved a thousand logs, gunsafes, wood stoves, junk, lifted a 2500 lb planer once.

I loaded this spreader with it a week ago,

Just take a look at an Autocrane that all the service trucks have. It's similar to the homemade hoist below. For 2500 lbs., you'd need to beef up the trailer and make sure the crane was mounted really solidly. 2500 lbs. on the end of a 10 ft. boom is several tons on the crane mount. Dave

Thanks for all the comments. As for the trailer having too much weight in one corner while lifting, it should be no issue. There are two jackstand legs in the front of the trailer. It would be very simple to drop one leg while hoisting some item. The only thing will be for me to remember to put the leg back up before I drive off!
thanks,
Cal