When not in use, my TC is stored inside my warehouse. It's safe, dry, & temperature controlled which is great, but I have finally gotten fed up with the amount of jockey'ing it takes to get the whole rig into the back corner of the building... not to mention getting the truck back out after unloading :M
So, this morning I built a simple steel dolly on wheels. Now I can back into the roll-up door, raise the camper, pull the truck out, slide the dolly under, and lower the camper onto it. Rolling the dolly (w/3500lb camper on board) across the concrete floor is a simple one-man job, but steering is easier with 2 people since all of the wheels are swivel casters.
Here's a few pic's;
The dolly is 33" tall (truck bed is ~34") which minimizes the amount of time I spend running the jacks up and down.
There's a 3/4" plywood deck on top of the dolly and I'll be using a second piece of ply on the lower shelf l for storing my cargo rack, motorcycle rack, tailgate, etc.
The best part is that I can now quickly & easily get the camper tucked all the way into the corner.
BTW, my shell is stored on a rolling dolly too :C
Cheers
-Mark
So, this morning I built a simple steel dolly on wheels. Now I can back into the roll-up door, raise the camper, pull the truck out, slide the dolly under, and lower the camper onto it. Rolling the dolly (w/3500lb camper on board) across the concrete floor is a simple one-man job, but steering is easier with 2 people since all of the wheels are swivel casters.
Here's a few pic's;
The dolly is 33" tall (truck bed is ~34") which minimizes the amount of time I spend running the jacks up and down.
There's a 3/4" plywood deck on top of the dolly and I'll be using a second piece of ply on the lower shelf l for storing my cargo rack, motorcycle rack, tailgate, etc.
The best part is that I can now quickly & easily get the camper tucked all the way into the corner.
BTW, my shell is stored on a rolling dolly too :C
Cheers
-Mark
So I wanted to add my design on here:
I wanted mine to be as wide as possible for stability, particularly because of the big full-wall slide. I plan to add eyelets to attach the turnbuckles while it's on the dolly to make sure it's as stable as possible.
I also designed it to be as short as possible while allowing me to walk under the cabover portion without ducking, and still having it clear most of the garage ceiling (the steel I-beam you can see is 12' at the bottom).
The casters are 1200# each and I used the same steel as the OP. As with all things down with TLAR (that looks about right) engineering, it's probably overbuilt by about a factor of 10, but what isn't overbuilt is me -- takes every ounce of strength I have to move it around, so hopefully my wife will be able to help out pushing it around (fortunately she's quite athletic).
BTW, there's a sheet of plywood screwed down to it - just took the pic before to show detail.
I wanted mine to be as wide as possible for stability, particularly because of the big full-wall slide. I plan to add eyelets to attach the turnbuckles while it's on the dolly to make sure it's as stable as possible.
I also designed it to be as short as possible while allowing me to walk under the cabover portion without ducking, and still having it clear most of the garage ceiling (the steel I-beam you can see is 12' at the bottom).
The casters are 1200# each and I used the same steel as the OP. As with all things down with TLAR (that looks about right) engineering, it's probably overbuilt by about a factor of 10, but what isn't overbuilt is me -- takes every ounce of strength I have to move it around, so hopefully my wife will be able to help out pushing it around (fortunately she's quite athletic).
BTW, there's a sheet of plywood screwed down to it - just took the pic before to show detail.
msiminoff wrote:
I understand your reasoning for having it 33" tall. I would probably make mine a little shorter.
Questions: what would you do different if you were building another?
Would you go with non-swivel casters on one end?
