Allan R

Just finished my front end build on the brakes, suspension and steering so it's time to put my baby to sleep for the winter. Hoped to get it done before now, but things didn't work out that way.

Lucky for me, Princess Auto had a flyer in the mail box the other day - and it had exactly what I was looking for to help out with storage. DOLLY! Well 4 of them to be more precise. Car Dolly's that is.
1/2 price sale! 49.95 a pair. Weighs in at about 15 lbs each / 30 lbs per box. Oh yeah, I had permission from the Mrs. to buy them.


Some assembly required... It was 0°C (32 F) in the garage when I unpacked these. Even wearing 2 layers under my coveralls it was obvious that I was going to get really cold fast. Solution?? Coleman stove! Got my trusted 41 year old 2 burner naptha sucking pressure pump stove out from under the counter and filled it with white gas. Amazingly the the tank seal was in like new condition. When I closed it and pumped it up the pressure pump worked like new. Man they should take a lesson from the old days with the new crap they're putting out now! Fired it up and it lit in about 3 seconds. Waited for 30 seconds and turned the fuel rod to 'burn' from 'light'. You could see the heat coming off that thing. Anyway, within 1/2 hour the garage was at 54° and plenty warm. Just remember - don't open the big door; it was -21 outside and windy. These stoves do need to be tended every so often and can be quite 'volatile' if not maintained. Even with an insulated garage, there's enough air draft to satisfy the need for fresh air ventilation.

Remember the story of the parachutist? On the way down from 12000 ft he pulls the ripcord and NUTHIN! Pulls the aux chord - STILL NUTHIN! So he starts saying his final prayers. Looking down he sees a speck coming toward him. Gets bigger by the second! OMG - it's someone coming up toward him. As they get closer he yells to the guy: "Hey, do you know anything about Parachutes???"
"NOOOOO!" comes the reply, followed by "Do you know anything about Coleman Stoves??"








Heavy enough gage construction for me. Iron wheels that are 'domed' for easy rolling


Insert car, push to storage area. Helps if your garage floor is smooth.


Nice & tight to the outside wall. Leaves more space for another car in the garage. None of that stuff on the shelves will fall - I glued it to the boards just to make sure . Clearance to the nearest point of contact is 1.5"


The really nice benefits of these?
* tighter storage spaces. This leaves my wife with a stall that's 24' X 11' to fit her little 14 X 6 Saturn into. She was really impressed and happy!
* easy to install
* easy to use - I had no trouble pushing this 3000+lb car around by myself
* in case of fire? I can easily yank it out of it's corner and push it out of the garage.
* Oh yeah, it sings 'Satchmo' (Louis Armstrong) songs to you while you build it. OMG I keep hearing that tune....

After I took these pics I pulled her out, dusted her and put her car cover on. Added extra blankies on the RF fender to protect against accidental bumps that my wife might administer bringing stuff in from her car.

firefrost gold

thanks for the post will look into a set next year mine is on dirt will get it done in spring

Jaybird

My friend also just picked up a set of dollies from Princess Auto for his 2011 Challenger SRT8 392. He's happy with them.
I'd be happy with his car but I don't have an extra $52,000.00 lying around.

Allan R

Yup, these things are wide enough to handle a 245 without spending 50 large..

In case it wasn't said in the OP (just checked, nope it wasn't) I'm really happy with these dolly's too! I don't know why I didn't get them sooner

Lady72nRob71

Dumb question - HOW do you get the car up on them?
Looks to challenging to drive up onto them, and certianly you do not have to jack up each side... - or do you?

oldzzy

I have the same set. Rob i just jack up the rear in the middle, and the front under the cross member

TripDeuces

I just picked up a set of four of these for $0 at my friends garage. They were just sitting outside. I need to find two casters though.

2blu442

Harbor Freight sells these too. I've purchased several sets to use on the cars but have also used them as engine dollys. Slick idea, although I did blow one caster apart when the wheel was facing 90 degrees from the direction I pushed the car. The little roller bearings went everywhere. I'd like to think that was a defective caster, but now I pay attention to what direction the little wheels are pointed when I give the car a heave ho!

Trip, if you have a Harbor Freight near you they have quite a selection of casters. If you don't let me know and I'll look at the one here in Medford to see if they have the right size to replace these. John

TripDeuces

I do have a harbor Freight nearby about 20 min from me. I'll go check them out, thx 2blu442

Allan R

That's definitely an option if you have a jack that reaches that height!

Lucky you! castors shouldn't be a problem to find. Great deal you got there Trip! Nice to have friends like that.

Not such a dumb question my friend. Took me a few minutes to figure out a strategy. Ready for this?
I had the front end up in the air already so I pumped up the jack as high as it would go. NOT ENOUGH to slide these babies under. But if you take off the front wheels?? Yuuup! Put the wheel onto the dolly, line it up with the rotor and reattach. How do you say it in this country??? Piece of pie??

For the rear, I just repeated the process jacking up the car on each side. Believe it or not there's no movement! I think thats because of the width of the dollys I already had put in place. I only took the jackstands out once I was sure the wheels were properly on the car. Took about 15 minutes with an impact. I used a piece of shop rag in the socket to keep it from damaging the acorn nuts.

This is one sweet setup.

Rickman48

About 5 pumps gets both rear wheels off the ground, if you go to the center.
Have to do it twice in the front at the lower control arms, though!

Allan R

You must have a high lift super jack. The wheels need to be off the floor more than 5 inches to fit these under them. I don't have a jack that will do that. I suppose I could put the jack on a couple of 2X12s to get the extra lift. I only used it once on the front though, supported the center cross member instead of each control arm. Much the same as doing the rear using the pumpkin

AZ455

Pretty cool. Definitely seems like a worth while investment for ease of storage.

I must say though, I am glad to live in a place that I don't need to store my car. I plan to drive it through the winter! But it only gets down to around 10F here but usually not lower than 20F.

mike's88

Dollies are nice for sliding the car around, just make sure to remember the car is on them when you lean against the car.

Tony72Cutlass'S'

Allan,

Looks awesome! I really might look into getting one of those next time i head over to PA. The closest store is 2 hours away. But maybe i'll take a picture of my garage once i've cleaned up all the old crap that's in there.

Is your garage sloped at all? Mine is because there's a drain in the middle, it'd be really worried that this 3400 ton beast would roll and whack into my sentra or something else...

Oldskeeper

I have three cars on these and I have had them for about 5 years (princess auto) for me I pick the car up with my hoist and lower it down in place then push it over then repeat with the next car. I use the pool noodles on a rope to keep from hitting the next car helps that my garage is 42 feet wide beside my hoist where I store the cars.

Allan R

You are one of the lucky ones! Although it looks like you get some colder temps, I'd bet that doesn't include snow, right? Up here snow is mandatory part of the environment. In fact if you don't have snow you don't really have winter . Yup, it's a culture thing...

Funny you should ask that Tony. When I was building the house I thought about having a sloped floor with a center drain for washing the car inside. But I ran out of funds for that. So the floor is pretty level - just a slight slope from front to back that lets me power wash the floors without having pools of standing water.

Holy crap! 3 cars? A hoist to boot? A 42 ft wide garage?? Now you're just bragging . BTW, That's a great use for pool noodles. I just gave all ours away to a neighbor with small kids. Oh well...I'll just be carefull checking the clearances. I only have to store 1 car

Oldskeeper

Hi Allen, my shop is 86 feet wide and 26 feet deep,we built it a few years ago, my wife said I could add a few bays on to the original 2 car (it didn't look that big on paper) so now I have my shop in the corner with the machines I need to produce the Starfire panels and the cars are packed into the rest and we still have to park the daily drivers outside(yes she is rather pissed at having all this floor space and her Bravada is outside.
By next year I hope to have everything straighted out allowing her to get a spot inside.
Steve

Allan R

Neat story Steve!
You produce the panels from scratch? I'm guessing you have a lot of press brakes and punch machines. You have an on line store? Yup, letting her park inside will deal nicely with removing the 'pissed off' part of the relationship.

Oldskeeper

I reproduce from scratch and yes I have a few presses and support equipment I have also picked up a brake lathe to reface the rotors and drums (get a few more miles out of them and saving the drums from our 63s)
If only it was the parking outside that was setting her off, I would be building her her own garage but that would mean starting a new thread that would go on for pages and pages.

Oldskeeper

Allen yes I'm online www.jaswest.com and we just added one on facebook Jaswest check them out and let me know what you think.

AZ455

We get snow. Arizona is kind of a weird state, its like 3 climates. South stays fairly warm, no snow. Central where I am gets snow, but not a lot. It snows several times, but will only be significant accumulation maybe 3 times a year. Up north they get plenty of snow, though probably not like you guys get.

Around here its highs in the 40s, lows in the teens to 20s. Not cold enough to put the car away, though I wont drive it in the snow. They use cinders here, no salt, so the roads are still fairly icy, not worth the risk. That's what the 4wd Toyota with BFG Mud-Terrains is for..

Believe it or not, we got snow about 2 weeks ago, just a dusting though. It's all in the elevation in AZ. We're at about 5200ft, Flagstaff up north is more like 7000-ish.