Motor Dolly suggestions

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GTSDave

GTSDave

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Richmond, Tx.
Well the time has come for me to pick up my engine, and I need a way to store it while I finish the body.

I have looked at a few engine dollys online and saw some that looked pretty cheap, and others that were "Universal" which usually means universal if you have a chevy.

My question is what are you guys using?

I have a very heavy duty engine stand, but it is very large and I dont have the room to keep my engine on it while I work on the cars.

That is why I was looking at the dollys. I would think it would be a lot safer to move it around to get it out of the way. We have all seen engine stands that have turned over while moving them around. I have way too much money in this thing to chance it.

-Dave
 
I made some engine dollies out of angle and 1" box tube...with a welder, a little scrap steel, and 4 wheels (I scrounged somewhere). I'd offer you a picture but the one I have left is buried in the corner behind my wife's mustang, under a 318 with the interior out of two darts stacked on top. Pretty much a rectangle with 4 wheels and bars going up to the motor mounts.
 
Why not just create it good ? Use the top for a table even.
 
RedFish,

I thought about a crate, but I am trying to work on two cars out of the same garage, and space is a premium. I have a pretty good shed in the back, but the ground is so soft I am worried about getting stuck trying to reach the shed.

In the garage, if I put it on a dolly, I can shrink wrap it to keep the dust out, and roll it around out of the way as needed.

As it is now, the GTS moves under it's own power, so I back it out to work on the Barracuda. It sucks only having a two car garage to work on these things out of, but it is better than nothing hehehe.

-Dave
 
GTGrinly,

I may just have to fab something up. All the ones I see in the ads look pretty cheesy to me.

Sounds like yours is doing a good job for you! It is something I know I will get a lot of use out of. I have way too many engines laying around hehehe.
 
Done right it could be under a picnic table out in the yard :)
but dont let anyone know its there !
 
I use the base of old shopping carts to make dollies. The local stores always have bend and damaged ones out back. I just ask the manager and he/she has never said no. Just take a hack saw and cut off the basket part at the uprights at the back.


Chuck
 
I make these. Specific for Small and Big block mopars.

Engdolly.jpg


Cost $65 plus shipping
 
I used a movers dolly I found by the trash, if you take the oil pan off a big block, it will rest perfectly on it, if you attach a few wood strips, you can leave the oil pan on. Total cost, $8 for a new wheel.
 
I use a large mover's dolly and an old 15" tire and leave the pan on. It took a couple of tries with the engine hoist to get it balanced, and it's nowhere near as stable as a dedicated stand of engine dolly, but I don't have kids to worry about, and this was the cheapest I could imagine. Still, $65 is pretty attractive. My "rig" _is_ kinda unstable.
 
I made one from wood, and some heavy duty steel casters.

Here's how: make a two x four wood base like a furniture dolly about 2' x 2 1/2', - then screw 1x6 yellow pine tongue in groove on to that to make the base. Next I put two 1x10 uprights a couple feet long spaced apart far enough for the oil pan to slip down into, which the pan rails sit on. Added some 1x gussets to the sides of the uprights and some end caps to the uprights on either end. Used dry wall screws and construction adhesive to assemble it. It has served me well and shown no instability. It doesn't get used for joy rides anyway, and I didn't have to buy a welder to build it.
 
Heres another one if you want more design ideas to make one.

http://www.arengineering.com/engine/motordolly/smallblock/motordolly.html

Its stable and when not in use takes up little space. A little pricey to buy, but looks pretty simple to make. I have one in use right now and the casters roll really smooth. I only have one because I used to be a distributor for ARE.
 
flyboy01 said:
I used a movers dolly I found by the trash, if you take the oil pan off a big block, it will rest perfectly on it, if you attach a few wood strips, you can leave the oil pan on. Total cost, $8 for a new wheel.
Click to expand...

exactly. i used a 24" long piece of 2x10 and 4 castors. maybe $10. when im done with it ill use it for my welder
 
1969340dart said:
Hey Dave! Do you know where diamond Back engines are in richmond!
Bobby
Click to expand...

Bobby,

Damon is a good friend of mine. He is the only one that I will allow to touch one of my engines. I have built every one of my engines since I was 16 years old until now.

If you were over there lately you probably saw mine there. Can't miss it. Big wedge done in black with Indy heads and STR-15 intake. Very close replica of Fugly's engine.

Didn't know Damon would sell any of their dollys. May have to talk to him about it. My engine has been done for a long time, but I finally cleared a corner of the garage out enough to make room to roll it in and out.

The Cuda is coming along nicely. Had the cage and back half done at Texas Thunder Performance. Mark did a great job on it.

Hopefully will be banging gears in it this summer. The Jerico and Boninfante clutch made it here about 2 weeks ago, and I am finishing up the tin work now.

It is time to go get the engine, so I decided to see what everyone was doing for dollys.

-Dave

IMG_0936.jpg
 
CudaChick1968 said:
We bought 2 of ours (sbc and sb mopar) from Summit. They're very heavy duty and not cheap by any means.

http://store.summitracing.com/egnse...opar&searchinresults=false&N=700+115&y=8&x=37

Crackedback's price looks pretty dang good though. :)
Click to expand...

I have 2 of those for some 360's I have. They work great!!! I got them from one of the cheap tool vendors at a swapmeet for 20 bucks each. The hard part is finding them at the meets,most of them only have the chevy and ford ones.
The shopping cart bottom also works good, I have done that several times myself.
 
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