engine storage

I only have a single car garage to do my work in and store parts and tools. I would like to put in some shelving and leave enough room between the ground and the first shelve to store a couple of engines. Does anyone have drawings or plans for engine cradles? Ideally I want to make a universal one and one for flatheads. I know I could buy them, but I have a bunch of square stock lying around and quite frankly more time than money!

grumper

 

it's been years, but when I worked at the junkyard, they had a whole bunch of these things that the engines sat on. The frame is angle iron, with two pieces of square tube connecting them. ON the square tube are upright flat bars, which are welded to a short larger piece of tube that slides on the cross pieces. So you can move the uprights to the correct width to fit on either side of the oil pan, and the uprights contact the pan rail. These things were stable, we could start and run the engines while they were on the dollies, and very easy to use.

this is a rough sketch, the uprights are not shown in the main drawing to try to make it more clear

 

old shopping cart bottoms work great

 

By the time you figure the price of the casters, I found that the furniture dollys with 4 swivels casters you can get at Home Depot or Lowes for about $20-$22 are cheaper. If you have a tippy engine, just screw on some 2X4 pieces cut to size. I will admit that my straight 8 buick engine about maxs one out. ymmv.....