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There have been posts about wheel hub and stud extenders, but just wanted to mention again that the tire dollies used to lift cars by the tires to move the car also work well to position the wheel for installation. They can be used to lift the tire/wheel and also allow the tire to be rolled to line up the studs.
The advantage of the commercial model is that the dolly can be adjusted to where the tire is much closer to the ground.
A forum member also made his own that can be used on his floor jack. (sorry I don't remember who that was, but here is a photo)
Added photo of my new dolly in action..
Used them to swap my front tires yesterday, and after I lubricated the plastic side rollers, they worked better than expected. I would prefer to have the rollers on bearings, but these are OK since they do not have to handle much weight.
St. Jude Donor '06-07-'08-'09-'10-'11-'12-'13-'14-'15-'16-'17-'18-'19-'20
Using the car dolly is a great idea. The other unit you've shown was one I had made a few years ago. It has come in handy to save my back which, as I get a bit older and with back problems, has really helped. Below is another picture of it in use.
The unit consists of a two 13" wide ball bearing rollers mounted to an aluminum plate with a mount underneath which fits into the floor jack location when the existing saddle is removed. To mount a wheel & tire you just roll the tire onto the rollers, move the unit to the car and raise the wheel to the right height. The rollers allow the wheel to be easily rotated to align with the wheel studs. It eliminates having to lift the wheel/tire and makes it easy to remove or mount them without hitting the calipers, the wheel barrels or the rotors. It should work with many floor jacks but only those which have a removable lift pad. While designed with the large Vette tires in mind it would work for virtually any tire or type of car.
St. Jude Donor '06-07-'08-'09-'10-'11-'12-'13-'14-'15-'16-'17-'18-'19-'20
Using the car dolly is a great idea. The other unit you've shown was one I had made a few years ago. It has come in handy to save my back which, as I get a bit older and with back problems, has really helped. Below is another picture of it in use.
The unit consists of a two 13" wide ball bearing rollers mounted to an aluminum plate with a mount underneath which fits into the floor jack location when the existing saddle is removed. To mount a wheel & tire you just roll the tire onto the rollers, move the unit to the car and raise the wheel to the right height. The rollers allow the wheel to be easily rotated to align with the wheel studs. It eliminates having to lift the wheel/tire and makes it easy to remove or mount them without hitting the calipers, the wheel barrels or the rotors. It should work with many floor jacks but only those which have a removable lift pad. While designed with the large Vette tires in mind it would work for virtually any tire or type of car.
The first commercial item is a true car dolly though, right? The kind that lifts the car by the tire and when using 4 you can push the whole car around.
Using the car dolly is a great idea. The other unit you've shown was one I had made a few years ago. It has come in handy to save my back which, as I get a bit older and with back problems, has really helped. Below is another picture of it in use.
The unit consists of a two 13" wide ball bearing rollers mounted to an aluminum plate with a mount underneath which fits into the floor jack location when the existing saddle is removed. To mount a wheel & tire you just roll the tire onto the rollers, move the unit to the car and raise the wheel to the right height. The rollers allow the wheel to be easily rotated to align with the wheel studs. It eliminates having to lift the wheel/tire and makes it easy to remove or mount them without hitting the calipers, the wheel barrels or the rotors. It should work with many floor jacks but only those which have a removable lift pad. While designed with the large Vette tires in mind it would work for virtually any tire or type of car.
Rich
Innovating, and certainly looks so serve a purpose. The rear tires/wheels on my Z are bulky. I use the stud extenders that help, and minimize damage to the calipers and rotors, but this is even better... and would work well for some of the heavier 35" & 38" truck tire set-ups that I've had...
The first commercial item is a true car dolly though, right? The kind that lifts the car by the tire and when using 4 you can push the whole car around.
That is correct. You would need 4 to lift a car, but you can buy them individually. Forgot to mention that they come in different widths, so be sure to get on that will handle a 12" wide tire if you plan to use it for the Corvette.
St. Jude Donor '06-07-'08-'09-'10-'11-'12-'13-'14-'15-'16-'17-'18-'19-'20
Originally Posted by sTz
Innovating, and certainly looks so serve a purpose. The rear tires/wheels on my Z are bulky. I use the stud extenders that help, and minimize damage to the calipers and rotors, but this is even better... and would work well for some of the heavier 35" & 38" truck tire set-ups that I've had...
Thanks. I first had "lug extenders" machined (before I found that they were available commercially and at a much lower cost than it cost to machine them!) for use with our 63 show car since I was frequently removing and reinstalling the wheels for cleaning and polishing. Those really helped to align everything and avoid scratching the wheel barrels or calipers. But I still had to lift the wheel and tire onto the extenders and found that to be a problem due to ongoing back issues. I needed to find a way to easily lift the wheel assembly and designed the unit to fit the floor jack.
I use both of them together which has worked really well.
Someone pointed out that even the 12" wide model will not work on Z06 tires since 335's are over 13 inches.
There are other brands that make a wider model. Look up GoJak. They make one for 20 inch wide tires.
They start to get expensive when you go up in width and weight capacity.
Check out Harbor Frieght. $65 less 20% off coupon. Had one for years now. Heavy truck wheels and tires don't mix well with a bad back. Worked fine with my base C6 also. Not sure about wider tires. Now looking at HF's picture, it is different from the one I purchased some time ago. Worth a look for the price.
Be careful about buying from HF. Might work alright just for tires, but I read that the wheels don't have bearings, and when used as intended to move car, they would not roll.
This is a great idea! I'm surprised that someone doesn't already make one..
Phil
Hmmmm They do make one (see first photo), unless you are talking about an adapter that works on a floor jack.
There are commercial jacks that are intended to lift and remove wheels and tires, especially like the dual wheels on 18 wheelers. The one Rich made still requires a jack with a removable cradle.
Last edited by TEXHAWK0; Aug 19, 2017 at 10:43 PM.
Looks like it would work well, plus it looks like it would not be limited in the width of the tire it can handle since it is open ended. It may be limited in the size of the tires it can handle since the space between rollers is fixed, which makes how far off the ground the tire sets non-adjustable.
Personally, I would prefer one without the tall handle to get in the way. Also I like having four wheels so you don't have to lift up on it to roll it. I like the tire dolly because you can vary the width between the rollers to get the tire the height you want it.
Last edited by TEXHAWK0; Aug 20, 2017 at 11:54 AM.
They look like conveyor rollers which you should be able to get at an industrial supply house like Grainger.
Grainger has a 15" roller for ~$10 ea. Oddly, simple brackets cost $20 and you'd need four, so that will be a fab job ($2 ea. at Home Depot) with some drilling.
St. Jude Donor '06-07-'08-'09-'10-'11-'12-'13-'14-'15-'16-'17-'18-'19-'20
Originally Posted by iclick
Rich, what was your source for the 13" rollers? As a world-class jury-rigger this looks like my kind of project.
Sorry for the delay in responding. I just saw your question.
I believe I got the rollers from MSC Direct. I just checked their web site and saw their part #36088144 which is 13 inches in width and 1&3/8 diameter which is what I used. They carry quite a few sizes in various widths and diameters. Mine came with a bracket which made mounting them to the aluminum plate I made very easy.
I wanted to add that the GoJak model for 20 inch tires shown above is the only one I have seen that has dual rollers with bearings which would make it much easier to roll the tire than other models.
Last edited by TEXHAWK0; Aug 22, 2017 at 11:47 AM.
Tire dolly
