Ideas on building a body cart or Dollie ??

My experiences:

a) You can use 4x4s, 2x8s, plywood, various round and rectangular steel tubing, but in the end what really matters is that the casters are big enough, strong enough, and easy to roll.

b) Make sure they're securely attached, it's quite unpleasant to be moving something around and have a caster break or break loose, Murphy's Law says that'll happen in the one spot that's least convenient to try to jack up and fix.

c) Consider how you're going to get things on and off the cart and what it needs to fit in/under/over. I wanted to be able to readily move the frame of my '64 Country Sedan in and out from under the body while I'm trial-fitting all the suspension and driveline, and the easiest way to do this was just to tackweld casters directly to the frame. The body's supported in the air by legs bolted to the cowl sides and the body mounts at the extreme rear. Sometimes the time spent making the tool or jig you need pays itself back many times over versus trying to jury-rig something.

d) The kind of cart that'd permit a body to be towed around on it (big, heavy, strong, big pneumatic tires) is exactly what you don't want for moving a body around by hand on a hard floor in a garage (compact, light, hard wheels). I've shuffled bodies back and forth to dipping, etc. on a car trailer on top of a bed of old tires, moved them on and off the trailer with a cherry picker, various floor jacks, jackstands, and a lot of caution. I don't have room to store a forklift, but if I were doing this regularly I'd probably make a big wooden A-frame lift of some sort.

 

I have two right now and I don't know what I'd do without them. I'm going to pick up a couple more on my next HF buy. You can get them for $8 each with code 29708810. They're for sale right on the front page now. I'll either use these put together with some boards or palettes or add casters to said palettes. I'm sick of having everything on jack stands.

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=172793&highlight=dolly&showall=1

 

This is a great thread. I am getting a roadster body in a couple of weeks and I need to build a stand for it. Good ideas.

John

 

Wow, some of you guys seriously over-engineer these things. Impressive stuff, but I didn't want to end up with a huge dolly that I would need to store or trip over after the body went back on. I just used some 4x4s strapped to wheel dollies and it worked just fine. I rolled my body around on that set-up for 6 or 8 months with no issues. I would not have done this if I was planning to take the body out of my shop or on a trailer.

 

I used wood 2x8's for the body dolly for my '36 Coupe. I measured the cars frame width for the dolly and also made it just long enough to support body under the firewall and rear end. Lag bolts and screws tie it all together. Left over 2x8's were used as brackets to make it super strong. 3" rubber casters from the hardware store makes it easy to move around. 2 of the casters at either end should swivel.

 

Like others here, I use the Harbor Freight four wheel dollies and a combination of 2x6's and plywood and screw and bolt together my cart based on what I need to put on it. They're cheap, quick to build and easy to take apart when I'm through with them. I've got one right now that I used to support the bed of my truck that I just screwed a sheet of plywood to and I now use it as a roll around workbench.

 

Old Metal Bed Frames, i use the angle iron from them to Fab all kinds of stuff.

 

I made this cart for truck cabs and car bodies. Has adjustable slides for different mount locations. I used large pneumatic tires so I can pull it in the yard if need be. Has a hand pull handle or I can mount it to the hitch on my quad.

 

Well i made a simple body cart from a old pallet which was free