The saga is continued...
As it turns out my wife had a dog show to attend this weekend (she breeds/shows chinese crested dogs) so I wasn't able to do more until today (btw she did very well at the show).
I was prepared to cut out the knee wall at the top of the basement stairs, but had a happy discovery. The PO of the house did a lot of the improvements himself, and this back section of the house was added on by him. He was thinking ahead I guess as this wall was built to be removed!
The plan was to add these HF dollys to the bottom of the pallet.
To do that I bolted on an old chain leveler that I used to use for my bush hog and used a post puller to lift the skid onto some 4x4s and then onto the dollys.
The winch is bolted to the floor this time (even remembered to leave room for the handle to swing), ramps were screwed to the stairs, and a platform was added to the landing to make it long enough to support the skid. It was held up by two jack stands set to support it about an inch below level so that we would be able to raise it enough to remove the stands when the skid was in place. In the first pic you can see that we also added a simple ramp to help the skid move down. Unfortunately there wasn't room to make it as shallow as I would have liked.
The ends were removed from the skid to give us enough room and then it was pushed over to the stair landing.
After attaching a safety cleat to the end of that new platform to make sure the skid didn't roll further than intended, and taking up all the slack, we started lowering the ramp. My wife did this in stages using a 6' steel digging bar to let down slowly. This had some pucker factor, but the cleat wasn't even needed. At this point HF's dicey quality reared it's ugly head. The leading pair of rollers snapped off of the back dolly while we were getting it onto the ramp. The bolt used for the swivel failed. These dollys are rated for 1000lb. each, and the lathe was somewhere around 800 lbs. Once again I was able to use the cordless drill to pay out the line.
Halfway down, the last pair of wheels on the back dolly snapped off. Nothing wrong with the 4 screws holding the mounting plate though, so now we have them digging into the ramps. Now I have to feed some slack, go down and left up the back of the skid with a pry bar to let it down the ramp, and start over again. Oil began leaking heavily from the spindle at this point.
My fearless assistant making her way back up the stairs after getting it all the way to the floor. I am told I'm taking her out to dinner as a reward. LOL