I was wondering if anyone ever transported their body mounted on a dolly on a trailer?

I'm planning on doing a body-off restomod, but I have a small 1 car garage and not much land where I can store my body until I'm done with the frame. I plan to store my body at my dad's garage, but he lives about 75 miles away. I was hoping to rent a trailer for the move instead of buying one just for this purpose. Would it be possible to add big enough wheels to the Nolan Adams body cart to winch it up onto a car trailer, and is the dolly solid enough to tranport the body on a trailer? Any other suggestions or ideas would be great.

 

I transport my dolly with a body on it like that.My dolly can teeter on any 2 of the 6 wheels which are under the main part of the body and not at the ends.Not sure what the Nolan Adams dolly looks like but if it has wheels under the nose and the tail it probably wont be able to roll up the ramps and onto the trailer.

 

Thanks. This is the Noland Adams dolly. I got his book and DVD about doing a body lift and it had this plan in it. I think I might make it a bit shorter for transportation though.

 

I moved mine around 30 miles with no issues. I did strap the body down and added a few bungies to the front and then straped the dolly to the trailer. I also put it on back to the front as the front seems fragile and I was worried it would catch the wind under the fenders - not very areodynamic when it is that high off the ground!

 

I built one of these and found it not to be all that strong. There isn't enough support at the wheels where the triangle pieces are. I used big 8" wheels as well. If you get it onto the trialer, I would put some big blocks under each wheel to take the load off the corners.
Also, the uprights don't have any cross bracing, so this design can't really take any lateral or longitudinal loads. It's OK if it is just sitting there, but on a trailer, with starts, and maybe quick emergency stops, and corners, there really is very little to stop the uprights from moving sideways. I would screw on steel cross braces, the heavy kind that you can buy at Homedepot with all the holes in it....not the light sheetmetal ones for shelving.

Acutally, I don't find this body dolly very well designed(sorry Noland). The triangle pieces should be a lot bigger. The whole thing should be longer to support the nose better.

Steve L
73 coupe since new

 

the drawing makes the dolly look like it's made of wood. this would( no pun intended) seem to flex more than steel. I think making sure the body mounts are sturdy just to be safe wouldn't hurt and you might consider adding some additional structure to the car just because it's easier than fixing anything that might go wrong later. It's probably not necessary I'm sure you'll drive like your moving fine crystal.

 

I was thinking about adding some cross bracing too. I think the plans are to make it 16" tall. I was planning on making it much shorter, maybe only 8" and adding larger tires so I can put it on the trailer easier.

Good idea about putting supports on the trailer instead of relying on the casters. I was worried it might not be that stable on casters even if strapped down well. You just gave me an idea of how I'll handle it. I'm not going to be doing the move until March/April but I'll try and document it when I do.

Next question, where do you strap down the body? I was thinking of opening the doors and having the straps run across the floor. Imagine my car is off the frame and the yellow lines are the straps. Any problems with this, or is there a better way to do it?



Thanks

 

I probably should have mentioned that I did not build the Noland carrier as it didn't look strong enough for what I wanted to do, probably good if it just sits but I needed to move my car. I will try and post a picture.

As for strapping I had actually removed my doors completely when I did the lift so I straped right across the floor. I understand some may say not to lift a car without the doors but we were striping it down to repair the bird cage so I wasn't as concerned.

 

I should have said it can teeter on the front wheels or the rear wheels.When I built mine it had to be able to be broken down so it could go inside my Suburban because I pulled body's at different locations. The nose and the rear end is supported by a removable 14' I beam built from 2 2x8s so the weight is carried from the center.The dolly is not effected much by the flatness of the floor or while being winched on a trailer.

 

I've used mine over and over again to haul a body on the trailer. . . But it's a little bit on the industrial side constructions wise. My shop will use this three more times and then I will probably sell it. We are working on a early 63 right now, then we do a early 65 and then I'm going to have the shop pull the body on my 70 LT1 (you can see a hint of it in the rh upper picture).

It is adjustable for front end support, and has an A-Frame made from the same steel that it will fit into. This allows for body rotation at about 70 degree’s which is perfect for a four post lift.

If you look at the picture in the rh lower side where were pulling it out from the body, you‘ll see that there are body mounting bolts on the dolly just as if it were sitting on a frame. (no it's not me in the picture either).

Interesting. I've not looked at the red car pictures in a long, long while. This car was pulled out of a chicken coop in north eastern Kentucky and had 30k original miles on it. The customer had worked for NASA in the early 60's and did the flares, fender change and all other mods in 1967. (It's a 64). All the parts on this car that were not body parts were the original parts too! We did this car exactly as the customer wanted, kept the flares, and painted it some import car color red. The interior was all custom done in 1980 saddle color.

Willcox Inc.

But if the jig you made is strong enough I would not have a problem with it.

 

I towed mine home on a dolly similar to the Adams one. It was strapped down real good and I had an extra strap going from front to back to prevent the windshield and rear glass from blowing out.

 

I bet you got some looks.

 

I did this when I moved the body from my buddy's garage to mine. It was about 30 miles almost all highway. I also had the front clip removed because of the birdcage damage that I had to deal with. The body dolly was all 2x4s and 4x4s with about 1000 drywall screws. I had only planned to need it for about a month, but two years later, it was still in great shape.

 

I have a nolan adams style dolly that was made for a C2. I converted it for use with a C3 by adding some supports to the nose section. I bolted the body straight to the body dolly through some of the body mount holes, and then used a ratchet strap for added piece of mind. My body was than transported to and from the blasting location by flatbed tow truck. Very inexpensive. I think total both ways was around $100.00, maybe less. Give me your email and I'll send you a photo of the transport.

 

I'v been using this same dolly for many years. I move the bodys from my shop to my home all the time. If you build a good fixture type dolly you can move it all you want.

Brian.G





This car is on the same dolly right now.

 

wow, you guys have given me a lot to think about. I like something lower like awork's design. I just want to keep the center of gravity as low as possible. Mine will probably be made out of wood because I don't know how to weld.

Also, I'm guessing the body mounts are used to attach the body to the dollies. Will the four middle mounts be fine for a move? I found a good scematic of the frame on the internet last night and am trying to draw something up based on that.

Thanks

 

Hi YB,
I built a dolly to transport the body,too.
I built it so the body would sit on all the body mounts based on a frame dimension drawing. Perhaps a drawing similar to the one that you found on the net. The one I used is in the G.M. Chassis Service Manual.
The pictures show the body on the dolly on the rollback and then the chassis going to meet the body a year later.
BIG FUN!!!
Regards,
Alan

 

If your going with wood build it like Alan 71 did. You want the rad. support bolted down, four of the center mounts and the rear mounts behind the wheels. If it's all bolted down to a nice firm dolly you can move it anywhere you want.

I made my steel one low so I could work on the bodys. I can't tell you how many bodys have been painted on that dolly.

 

Do you have a set of plans for that? Im about to pull the body of mine pretty soon

 

If you have a high enough ceiling you could do something like I did. I made a frame high enough so that I could roll the chassis under the body. I had the body, chassis, 2 engines, 2 transmissions, tool box, compressor and all kinds of other junk crammed into my 1-car garage.

Not the easist workspace but I had no other place to store things.



Rick B.