Making it Mobile: How To Build A Body Dolly
Photos and Text by Wayne Scraba
Can we talk? I had this little problem (actually, not so little). It was about mobility. Not mine – it was a Chevy Nova I had under construction. As it turned out, I had the subframe out of the car so that it could be stripped, powder coated and rebuilt. Simultaneously, the body had to be shuffled around the shop and back and forth to the painter. The body shell was basically dead in the water, sitting on axle stands in the shop. I didn’t have a rotisserie (still don’t). And besides, rolling a body onto the back of a roll back truck or onto a trailer isn’t fun when it’s strapped to a rotisserie (been there, done that). On top of all of that, I had downsized. My new to me little shop was (is) well, little. Space is at a premium.
What I really needed was something small, easy to build and easy to use. But it had to be robust so that it could be winched onto a trailer or rollback truck without folding up. I also figured it had to be small enough that it wouldn’t take up much space off the car, and I really didn’t want something so heavy that it would kill my aging back. Finally, I figured it had to be somewhat universal: Something that could easily be modified or adapted to fit another car. And oh yeah. It to be cheap.
Pretty soon, my needs added up to a tall order. I could just buy another subframe and rebuild it or swap it under the car while the original was under restoration. But once I started to look for a used subframe I quickly found out they weren’t as easy to find as I first thought. And they weren’t exactly inexpensive either. Back to the drawing board. And that’s exactly what I did:
I had a decent set of caster wheels in the shop. They had a diameter of 6-iches. From that point, I (roughly—very roughly) sketched out a set of box section uprights. They measure 4X6X9.5-inches. The 4X6-inch footprint gave me sufficient room to install the caster wheels (and in fact, the mounting pattern of the caster wheels dictated the shape of the structure). Then I could bolt the box section pieces to the subframe mounting points on the body.
Next up, I took the crude drawing to a local trailer manufacturer. Sure enough, they had some cast-off aluminum box sections in the right size. The box sections were ¼-inch thick. More than sufficient for my needs. I had them cap the ends (welding aluminum to both ends of the box section to tubing). The accompanying photos show what I came up with.
But honestly, at this point, all I had was a couple of nice strong light aluminum boxes. And they had very pretty tig welds on them too. Now what? Next issue, we’ll show you how the boxes were cut up so that they could actually becomes something useful! Watch for it.
These are caster wheels I had buried inside my workbench. As it turns out, I bought these a few years ago from a surplus place. The bases are fractionally larger than 4X6-inches and the wheels swivel on ball bearings. Pretty much perfect for the application.
The vital pieces of the subframe dolly puzzle are two of these aluminum boxes. They’re really just robust spacers. I didn’t plan for it, but as you can see, the welding job is stunning.
Since the spacers are nothing more than an enclosed box, I needed a way to install and more important, access the hardware (caster fasteners and main subframe mount bolts). Here, I’ve marked off the cut for the access opening. Next issue, I’ll cut it apart. Watch for it.