So I needed an engine cart for not just an engine but an engine with the transmission still attached. Nobody seems to make one so I had to get creative. First thing I decided was I didn't need it to be fancy. Second thing I decided was it needed to be cheap. I knew my engine/trans combo was under 1000 lbs. Probably closer to 650-700 lbs. So I thought about it for a week or so and then it hit me. A furniture moving dolly. I got a Harbor Frieght catalog and saw a 30"x18" dolly for a 1000 lb capacity. Cost = $15.99 less 20% with a coupon. New cost = $12.79 Perfect! But then I wondered how do I put the engine/trans on it and distribute the load to the corners? Build a deck for it. I had a piece of 3/4" plywood in my barn, but needed a 2x4. So I picked that up at Lowes for $3.96. First I bought my dolly. I forgot to take a picture, but here is what the website shows. Next I peeled the carpeting off ends of the dolly. Then I set up my table saw and made a few test cuts on a scrap piece of wood to set my cut depth. Once my depth was right I cut up my 2x4 8ft and test fit each piece. After I made and fit my deck pieces I assembled it into this (it's upside down in the pic). Then I grabbed the dolly and made sure it all still fit (it did). Next I flipped it over and screwed the deck to the dolly. Finally I flipped it back over and cut a piece of the 3/4 plywood to fit and screwed it down. Viola! It's done. Total cost = about $17 bucks. Granted I had a few pieces of the puzzle in my barn already but it was still damn cheap. Now all I gotta do is throw an old tire on it and set the engine/trans down so it's balanced and strap it down with a ratchet strap. Now my engine/trans can stay married and be mobile until I am ready to use it.
Lots of creative, smart people here! That's great...only problem now is your head won't fit through the door! Speaking of inexpensive things this is a Dayton mandrel set, mounted on scrap 2x12s about 4ft high bolted to a garage post, slot for v belt goes down to a 1hp motor that I put a large adjustable tension spring on it. Stuff I had except for the LED light above, mandrel ordered eBay has grease fittings. It won't stall no matter what! Grinding & wire wheel. Sorry for poor pictures, lightning knocked out our power just now for a little while. Sent from my SM-S320VL using Tapatalk
Great idea, those moving dollies are handy. They also work great without any of your carpentry skills, if you happen to have a bare SB Chevy block you want to store and/or roll around. This one came from Northern Tool - cross pieces fit between the main bearing caps perfectly. \
I was always pretty proud of this. We built a simple shelving unit to hold our bench stock buckets. You can dump the bucket on top to sort through until you find your piece. Once you found what you needed, you put the bucket in the slot under the hole and clean up is quick. We've been using this for the last 7 years.............works great
I built this dolly for my flathead and trans. harbor freight casters, a few bolts and some left over timbers from building my house. Works like a charm
I don't know if it's storage exactly but I have a flat cart with a handle that was an ancient shopping cart - the chain went out of business in the 70s - that I picked up on town junk day one year from a neighbor who appeared to have been using it as a cart to haul their trash cans in and out to the curb. The basket was long gone, with part of the support for that sawed off and just the handle and the bottom and a piece of plywood on it. It's on it's third deck, I redid it a second time when someone left a bunch of pieces of 1/2" plywood behind at the Syracuse Nats last year so cost to redo it was zero. The 1/4" on 1x3s I had put on it was getting pretty whipped. I usually use it for getting in and out of hobby shows but it went in and out of the junkyard a couple times too. In the summer, all the hobby stuff stacks up on top of it in the garage and waits for those meets to start again. Which includes crates and trays I made that let me set up most of a table in about 10 minutes. I have to say if I wanted to do an engine dolly I might look for another cart to base it from.
All right, I'll jump in. Working out of a two car garage, space is at a premium. After 2 months of shakedown runs it was time to tear the roadster down to address any issues and clean, paint and polish before reassembly. Problem was...........where to put all the parts and still have room to work? One idea was my suspension dolly. 4 casters that I pulled off something years ago and a bunch of scrap lumber. All suspension components in one spot and it's mobile! Took about an hour to build.
My 320 in line Buick 8 weighs just under 1,000 pounds. The weight of the engine crushed the wheels on my furniture dolly so I made one extra long and extra stout. The blocks match the engine mount locations. I still have room and wheel capacity to bolt the transmission onto the bell housing.
Put a string of LED patio lights in the baby food bottles and, BOOM! Cool shop ceiling light chandelier!
I have an alley behind my place where shopping trolleys get dumped,. and they end up in shopping trolley hell and get converted to engine dollys. I have 1 to suit Chevy 6, 1 for SBC, and 1 for Holden Red motors. They sure save your back when clean-up year comes around.
For my flathead, I built a platform with six wheels (only 'cause I had them) then used schedule 80 pvc pipe to support the engine off the platform. The rear of the engine is bolted through the bell housing flanges and the middle of the pvc pipe. The from of the engine uses l-brackets used to secure the bottom sill of a house on the concrete foundation. I flipped those upside down with the short "L" though the water pump engine mount holes. That's my rebuilt pressure plate and clutch disc for the 320 8 cyl in the box on the floor.
Thats the safety problem. Some of those cheap dolly wheels have weak/thin support to their axle. First time you try to turn your engine around on the floor the side supports from the axle just twist, bend down and your engine is no longer stable. Great thread, keep ém coming.
Kbgreen, I bet you own that place, the Flathead seems so out of place.( looks good in my opinion). Know why the cellophane is wrapped around the transmission.... that stuff stinks, especially the older stuff. Had a Columbia rear end, open, in my mini-van for two days, stunk pretty bad. Bones
It's my office and it belongs cause we all get art work in our office, right boss? The whole set up has been rebuilt and has new grease so it doesn't smell that bad. In moderation, some of car smells put me back in the garage. I mostly wrapped the rear open end to keep dust out.
Boy that's nice. I'd be seriously jealous were it not for a couple of terms I have vague memories of: office and boss.
Hey T, We made a 1” wide, angle iron rectangle welded together and attached to steel roller skates for our 1960’s version of a motor cart. We had extra angle iron and of course steel roller skates that were not being used. If we needed more height and motor stability, we used a strong, steel reinforced, milk crate on the frame. This set up held a 283 short block, a SBC long block and a complete 292 C.I. 671 SBC motor strapped down (at different times) with 1” nylon straps from an army surplus store. The metal end hooks allowed quick attachment and release to anywhere on the angle iron frame. That set up worked because there was nothing else on the market that would work for us. Plus, if there was a rolling engine cart, it cost money. That we did not have, but time and skill we had lots of it. Your current idea is much better as the wood frame roller is an all direction cart. I have one in my garage and it has seen many uses all over the house and garage. My hooks are on the bottom, but will be moved elsewhere. You have plenty of clearance for flip out hooks. Our early, steel cart only could go in one direction (not the boy band) and we had to lift the strapped motor to move it in another direction. The steel roller skates were forward or reverse only… Jnaki If I may suggest, a thick tire for the lower motor support on the wood platform should be inside of the cart perimeter. A smaller, thicker tire that fits gives more support and stays inside of the exterior area. But, the key is attaching something to the wood frame securely like those hoist rings at the 4 corners. If the hoist rings flip in and out, you will have clearance to do many other jobs with this cart. Now, your straps have hooks on the ends and can easily be clipped on or off when cross strapping the motor down. Great project !
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