There are lots of companies who make these dollies, advertised in car magazines,
Hemmings, etc. Take a look at
http://www.Kingdolly.com/photos.html
for a really nice set that costs $325. There's another company that makes them
for a lower price but I lost the bookmark in a computer changeover.
I've seen several different brands and have seen some pitfalls. If you buy some,
stay away from the ones that are a curved metal plate with four small casters. I
saw one of these flipped from under the front wheel of a 6000 lb. classic
Packard -- not pretty.
There are two things to watch for on these car dollies. First, if you get some
that the car wheels set on, when you move the car they will very easily flip out
from under the front wheel. Hard to describe in words why this is, but it has to
do with the moving force being transmitted at the hub of the unbraked wheel, and
the dolly casters hitting some very small obstruction. Secondly, the right kind
of casters must be used or it's difficult to change directions.
I built a bunch of these for myself and friends (at least they used to be
friends). I built them from 1-1/2" angle and they are designed so that when the
car is on the dollies, the bottom surface of the tire is about 1" off the floor,
and the wheel is captured by the dolly my car has 15" wheels). The major
obstacle is the cost of the casters. We purchased quite a few of them (80) to
get the price down -- if you try to purchase just enough to build four dollies,
it costs more for the casters than for whole dollies already fabricated.
We used the least expensive steel wheeled casters made. They are quite safe.
Their only disadvantage is they take a little fiddling to change direction (like
from east-west to north-south) because of the friction of the wheels on the
floor. I built two sets for myself but only use one set, and if you would like
the other set of four, noting the above shortcoming, I'll sell them to you for
the cost of material in them for ($150 plus you pay shipping).
Good luck.
John Lehman wrote:
> Time once again to stuff the race car into as small a space as possible in
> the back of the garage so as to get our other cars out of the weather at
> night and avoid the task of scraping snow and ice off our daily drivers. To
> that end I was thinking it would be nice to have some sort of stand/dolly
> with heavy duty casters that would allow me to raise the car up on the stand
> and single-handedly push the car sideways into its winter slot. I was
> contemplating custom-fabricating some such contraption, but was wondering
> what anyone else has come up with. Is there something commercially
> available? Anybody made one for themselves? Anyone else interested if I
> happen to find one?
>
> John Lehman
> '68 Triumph GT6
--
uncle jack
TR4 - 10 mpg
TR6 - 30 mpg
(diligently engineering my way to the back of the pack)
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