A lightweight crane can be useful, I did a diy one years ago with a winch. With the k5 out of pic, what about get 2 pieces of heaviest pipe you can get your hands on one that. Fits inside the other. Put it on whatever corner you work near.
Use a piece underneath as a pin in place leg, that comes out easy for travel and holds weight in use. Snag some HD rec tubing or I beam for the arm.
Rig it so the winch is on a drawbar plugging into base of crane where it swivels with base outer pipe. If you do swing side pulleys at top and end of crane it is easy to remove winch to put it onto pickup for offroading or a flatbed trailer for loading a car.
An old fly wheel and starter to handle rotating, but put on a couple ballast resistors to cut power WAY down. Nice slow rotation. Old 24 volt starter even better.
I just used a collapsible arm that had a couple different positions for angle until I found a smokin deal on a long hydraulic ram.
Ended up selling the crane minus the winch for $2500 when it was over.
Later I bought the harbor freight in bed pickup crane. Made a receiver mount with support leg for it. When the hand crank unit fails, a 4 wheeler winch will take its place. That free swinging design to load stuff in is dangerous- don’t do that! Have to have something to rotate it. Hand ratcheting system or something.
Also for the gear stored under the old wheel wells, if you can do slide out racks like a ratpack uses- that would make them easy to use.
Hand spools for winding welding cables is nice also. Just pipe in pipe and plate ends. Unplug to roll up. Just make sure they are isolated from each other and trailer frame. I used a barrel cut in half to hinge closed to protect them from weather and thieves. Made a good spot to hold my gloves,leather and hood also right there between reels.
Good to see progress.
