In article ,
Ignoramus13761 wrote:

Bruce, what you offer is a well written generic safety message. "be
careful modifying things and also, when lifted, things might fall, and
if you stand under things that fall, they will fall on you, and you
need a lot of expensive doodads and well paid engineers to be OSHA
compliant".

It is hard to argue with this.

What Roger is trying, though, is NOT overhead lifting, and he is just
trying to get stuff out of his pickup truck.

What I personally think is a more specific opinion, that Roger's
modification will end up bending the vertical post if used at full
capacity.

In any case, I think, if he wants to go ahead, he should, it is his
right, but he should test the crane at his planned capacity, very
carefully.

At capacity? Not even close. Test at about four times stated capacity.
No matter how good an engineer/welder one may be.

Joe Gwinn