Refresche
Picture


Blog

  • Home
  • Restoration
  • Parts
  • About
  • Contact
  • Friends of Refresche
  • Blog

4/13/2020

Hello, Dolly!

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture


If you're embarking on a Porsche restoration, you need a dolly.  A dolly makes it much easier to transport the car from welding shop to paint shop and around your base shop.  It also allows access to all the nooks and crannies for cleaning, coating and painting.  This vertically adjustable dolly was purchased from a fellow Porsche enthusiast.

It was pretty rusty, with disintegrating 3-inch casters.  The new casters are 8-inches in diameter and allow easy movement over pebbles and other irregularities.  The mounted body can be easily moved by one person, however with all four casters fully rotational, it can get a little unwieldy.  That's the trade-off for maneuverability.  Next time, I'll replace two of the casters with fixed, braked casters.  Make sure you don't scrimp on caster quality.  These are small potatoes compared to what you'll spend later.  This isn't the time to save on your budget.

The dolly clamps onto the seam welds on the undercarriage.  Because of this, there is significant overhang of the front and rear ends of the car.  An extension-and-caster assembly were added as a safety support in case the car is leaned on, or someone gets inside and isn't aware of the center of mass.  Even though the clamping mechanism is enough by itself, I'm going to tack weld the clamps onto the seam welds as an additional safety measure.

With the engine and transmission removed to balance the car evenly, and most of the car disassembled, I loaded it onto the dolly.  Now I can remove the remaining suspension/steering components and will have unobstructed access for cleaning.

Picture
Dolly ready for the car.
Picture
Original 3-inch casters.
Picture
New, 8-inch casters. Very maneuverable. Almost too much maneuverability.
Picture
The seam weld is sandwiched between the two plates.
Picture
Extension-and-caster assembly to prevent the body from tipping forward and backward. There's another one at the other end.

Share

0 Comments
Details

    Author

    Hi.  I'm Eric Kelner.  I restore, modify, collect and, most importantly, drive Porsches.  One of my friends has a t-shirt that says: I'm pretty sure my last words will be "Oh sh#%, that didn't work!"  These are writings about my experiences restoring, modifying, maintaining and enjoying Porsches.  Feel free to comment.

    Categories

    All
    911 Safari Tribute
    Porsche 356

    Archives

    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020

    RSS Feed

© 2021 Refresche. All rights reserved.
  • Home
  • Restoration
  • Parts
  • About
  • Contact
  • Friends of Refresche
  • Blog