I have meant to share this contraption I’ve been using for the last few years for raising, lowering, and storing my 36 Ford body safely. The first time I took the body off the frame I used an engine hoist to pick up each end at a time, block it up off the floor, then carefully try to move the ch***is in and out without hitting the supports. I didn’t like how that worked and made me nervous so I decided I needed something safer and easier. I wanted something I could lift and lower each end incrementally, that I could store the body with for long periods, be movable with the body on it, be relatively compact, and finally affordable. I figured I could buy 1 or 2 gantries but they seemed a bit too wide and price wise It was going to cost quite a bit. My wife parks in the 2 car garage with it so I needed something not so wide that I could push tight to the wall. I measured the out to out dimension of the ch***is and body with the widest part being about a little over 5 ½’ wide’. I considered building something out of wood when I found these baker scaffolds at the Harbor Freight. The bakers scaffolds have a 70 ½” inside clear width dimension so there was enough room to roll the ch***is out and is suitable for smaller car bodies. Height wise, even with the angle braces, there is enough clearance to lift the body high enough to pull the ch***is out. Each scaffold is rated for 900 lbs which is more than enough for each end of a body shell. I bought 4 HF hand winches which are each rated for 900 lbs and mounted them to 30” Unistrut pieces that sit on top of the scaffold spanning front to back. I didn’t trust mounting winches to that thin plywood wood on top (I’m a structural engineer so I checked its capacity and it was not enough for me to feel comfortable). I then cut some slits in the plywood for the straps to feed down through to pick the body. Current prices for bakers scaffolds are $200 each , winches are $27 each, two 10’ long sections of Unistrut is about $50 so all in you can do this for under $600. I made multiple trips to HF with my coupons so all in I did it for under $500. Of course one can find used baker scaffolds to do it for even less. A gantry at HF right now is about $740 each so going this route was much more economical than buying two of those. Using it is pretty easy . I can winch one end at a time with 4x4s bearing on the rungs that I add or remove as I go up or down so it can only drop 4” should something happen. When I’m done I leave a 4x4 on the rung and set the body down on it and just winch it to put tension on the straps for redundancy. I kept the body up at the second rung height so I could store stuff on dolleys underneath when the ch***is was out. With the scaffolds being on casters I can move the whole body as needed by myself. I also stored stuff on top of them which was convenient. Once I’m done with them I can break them down to not take up much room for storage or just sell them if I don’t need them.
Very cool idea, love it! But what holds the 2 scaffolds together? I'd be worried that they would start to move independent of each other. Did I miss something?
It actually rolls around pretty easily without connecting them together when they are bearing on the 4x4s. I typically push the body at the firewall or the trunk. I was going to take a 2x4 each side to attach them together but found it wasn’t needed but someone could do that if they wanted.
I agree with Sporty45 that it's a great idea but would tie the two scaffolds together so I could move it if I wanted to.
Great idea! They could double as storage shelves when not needed for body lifting. The way my luck rolls though, I'd have to tie them together. If I didn't, I'd most likely find that nut I dropped and couldn't find with one of the wheels, while rolling it around
Slick idea but I am like the others in that one time or another one of those is going to catch on something and tip causing a crash because they aren't solidly connected to each other. I see those scaffolds for sale on FB marketplace or Craigslist fairly often after people finish home redo projects.
Part of why I didn’t tie the scaffolds together was if I tied them together up high I can’t open the doors where I keep parts inside and down low I wouldn’t be able to roll dollies of rear ends, transmissions, and such in and out from the side. For the most part it stayed in one spot but when I did move it it was a few feet one way or another. The casters lock which is nice. It’s really quite stable and with the straps and 4x4s it has redundant support. A simple 2x4 bolted to each one would give that extra piece of mind.
Wow--this is amazing! My neighbor was getting rid of his roll around scaffold and I picked it up for similar purpose of putting a pickup body on the ch***is. Glad to see the idea in play. Happy to see this and thank you for sharing.
Nice, great idea. I already have scaffold. I generally lift the body and throw cross beams from pallet racking under it. Stack structural rated concrete block with osb spacers for supports. Nice and wide, roll the ch***is out. Then the body is stuck in one spot. Just cause I have extra pallet racking beams, 4x4 or steel tube would work fine. Lot of places are selling off their scaffolding to meet OSHA or other regulatory requirements. I bought a stack very inexpensively from a construction company.
The Jalopy Journal
