Hello

For those who built this one http://www.corvette-restoration.com/...Body_Dolly.pdf would you do anything different? Main question I have is can you go any higher to have move room to work on the underside and be safe? Thanks.

 

if it's too high, you're straining to reach the underside of the body, and if it's too low, there's too little room to work. i think the dimensions are the result of trial and error, and are a good compromise.

 

Hi Dave,
The body should just be off the floor enough so that you can only work on it using a creeper.
This is the only way to ensure that most of the 40 years of 'stuff' your scraping off will end up in your eyes, nose and mouth.
Otherwise I found rolling seat height is good.
Regards,
Alan

 

I held my car at various heights on my lift to determine the optimum working height for myself before I built my dolly. As a result, my dolly is higher than the one in your reference, and it allowed me to do all the bodywork comfortably, while also accessing the botom of the body with easy. A few photos shown here:

 

I think it will depend on what you need to to and how your get it off. I made mine pretty high so I could get under it and do body work etc. The down side was I made it too high to get the body on top of it easily.

I agree with alan, make if just high enough to sit on a roller seat to get under it.

 

I think mine ended up being a little high although it was easier standing up in the engine bay working with roller stool access to the underneath. One thing I wish I would have done, BIGGER wheels for ease of movement.

 

Thanks everyone for the great info!

Lars what is the height of yours with the casters?

 

I think it was Alan who posted a pic a while back of his with what looked like these casters

http://www.harborfreight.com/10-inch...ter-38944.html

Based on my experience with 5" solid casters that's the way I would go. I think rolling it around would be much easier especially if you need to roll it out of the garage and there is a little lip like most have to keep water from coming in.

 

We used the same plans for building our body dollie. However, we did change the measurements for the vertical 4x4's...

The plans called for the 4x4's to be 14" tall. On our White 72 vette, we cut the 4x4's to 28" and left all other measurements the same. When it came time to do the actual body removal, the only small issue we ran into was that it was kind of a PITA to lift the body high enough to clear the top of the dollie so we could lower the body in place. We did not use a lift for this, but rounded up 10 of our buds to man-handle it. All in all, it worked out okay. There is plenty of room underneath the body to clean, make any repairs, etc. If you plan on using a lift to pull the body and drop on the dollie, the 28" height should not be an issue.

For our 71 Convertible, we again used the same dollie plans, but this time we cut the 4x4's to a 20" height. Instead of trying to round up everyone again to lift this body (yes, we're doing 2 body-off restorations at once!), we chose the engine hoist lift method to lift the body and had no problem with the shorter length of the 4x4's. We were able to pull the body and drop on the dollie using only 2 of us. The only downfall for the 20" height was that it was a little harder to clean under the body. We first started using a creeper to lay on, but it was kind of difficult. So we ended up doing without the creeper and just laid on our backs to clean, which was definitely not a fun job!

In the end, I think for our specific working area in the garage, the 28" high dollie (not counting additional height of wheels) was a tad too high and the 20" height for the convertible was a tad bit too short. If I was ever build another dollie, I would maybe cut the 4x4's to a 24" height which in my eyes would be perfect for our situation.

Hope this gives you something to think about. Below are photos for reference...

 

I made mine adjustable by about 12" up or down and was able to move it around depending on what kind of work I was doing and where I needed to spend the most amount of time on the car. Simply make "runners" for the vertical 2x4's that support the body by bolting 2x4's on either side of them and one 2"x6" horizontally across those. Cut the vertical supports long enough to get the body as high or low as you want. Make multiple sets of height adjustment holes and use bolts that go all the way through the 'assembly' for strength. This adjustability has been really handy!



here's the dolly I used, I believe I got this from you Alan, it worked great! I did mod it a bit but it would work fine just as it was.