City Lifting’s Grove GMK6400 completes impressive London lift

• City Lifting’s Grove GMK6400 carries out challenging lift in narrow streets of London

• The GMK6400 is currently the strongest mobile crane on six axles

• No other six-axle crane comes close to achieving the lift capabilities of the GMK6400

A project brief calling for a crane to lift a 7.5 t air conditioning unit, at a 69 m radius, on top of a 60 m high building, in one of the world’s busiest cities, would leave a lot of crane rental companies scratching their heads for the best option - but not City Lifting. Currently, the UK’s only owner of the 400 t capacity Grove GMK6400, the company knew immediately it had the best crane for the job. Several competitors who bid for the job had opted for a 750 t crane, asserting that the lift could not be achieved any other way. But City Lifting was able to complete the project swiftly and cost-effectively with its Grove GMK6400 –the crane even had 5 m of reach to spare. The GMK6400 is currently the strongest mobile crane on six axles.

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Working in conjunction with a major building services company, the first challenge for City Lifting was rigging the crane for the lift. Placing a heavy crane with luffing jib and guyed boom configuration in the streets of London is challenging and complex to carry out. However, the Grove GMK6400 was able to rig on the road with extended outriggers measuring 8.70 m x 7.40 m. City Lifting also worked in conjunction with a structural engineer to ensure the heavy outrigger loadings were dispatched safely, avoiding underground hazards such as high voltage and fiber optic cables.

“The capacity and reach of the Grove GMK6400, along with its fast set-up time and proven agility on tight job sites, made it a natural fit for City Lifting’s fleet as well as the perfect choice for this job,” says Melvyn Rogers, sales director for City Lifting. “At City Lifting, we love to take on this type of difficult and challenging lift. One of the reasons we purchased the GMK6400 was to enable us to do more of this. No other six-axle crane comes close to achieving the lift capabilities that the GMK6400 provides. Extremely short set-up times, in particular with the self-rigging MegaWing Lift, keep it ahead of all other cranes in this class – and that gives us a competitive advantage.”

The heavy-duty Grove GMK6400 boasts a number of design features that allow it to complete jobs that would more commonly be associated with seven-axle cranes. Having such impressive lift abilities from a crane that has fewer axles gives the GMK6400 advantages in accessing tight spaces on site. Other innovative design features on the GMK6400 include the MegaDrive hydrostatic drive system and the crane’s single engine design with Fuel Saver option. It offers excellent on-site flexibility too with a choice of three outrigger positions, more than any other crane in this class.

“For the requirements of this project, the GMK6400 wasn’t just the best choice for the job, it was the only choice,” concludes Rogers. “This lift was extremely challenging and no other crane in the country would have been capable of performing it.”