Race car dolly from the pages of this forum

[AreBee]

As a newbie to welding some 12 months ago and a keen track dayer with a car I saved from being scrapped, I was keen to come up with a solution to being able to raise the car onto some sort of movable dolly so I would be able to move the car easily across my garage and work on it not having to have an osteopath present to get my back straight after bending over the car for long periods. I also needed a way to remove the oil filter and oil drain through service holes in the cars undertray.

I came across an old post here on the forum in which someone had the exact same requirement and to which someone else had suggested a simple by very versitile 50mm & 40mm jack and dolly system.

Well I had a go and I have to say I'm as pleased as punch and I have uploaded the pictures with a cetain amount of satisfaction as over this weekend I have put them in use and they work brilliantly. Not only that I attened the annual Autosport show at the NEC in the week where a company was offering the same designed system (although the jack sections were much smaller that the ones I have fabricated) at £200 a pair. I think my build came in about £80 so kerching for me.

I had to remove the engine from my T5 Mission and with the aid of a hand chain winch and my very easy to move chassis I did it 2 hours. The car is pretty naked at present and looks ugly so I have included a picture of what it looks like when fully clothed fully restored.

Who ever posted the pictures of the dolly's previously? Cheers!

RB

 

[Shox Dr]

Excellent work, I bet that's a blast to drive, Kawasaki zx? engine?

 

[Epicyclic]

Excellent! Got me thinking, I may need a variation on the theme...

She looks sweet with her clothes on - did I really just say that

 

[AreBee]

Thanks guys and yes a Kawasaki ZX12R (A1) with a new one on the way (well one with only 10k on the clock).

Looks like the dolly will get some more use as the intermediate reduction drive on the freelander used for towing went kaput this morning.

RB

 

[Coo]

That was gonna be scrapped?

Good save, and well done on the dollys !

 

[stuvy]

Hiya, your names not andy is it? and do i recognise that as the sabre car?

 

[AreBee]

No mate, my names Ron.

The car's history that I'm aware of is that it was first built by a guy called Tom Saddler from Essex. It's called a T5 Mission and was only one of a handful made before he sold the rights to a wealthy Welshman who never produced another car.

I bought the car from a guy called Oliver Hulme who had raced it in the Bike Sports class of the 750MC and later in the BSRCC Open Sports Car series. lack of funds forced him to sell the car and when I took it over it was a real mess. I have uploaded a few pictures to get a feel for the work I have completed so far. The body was racked with splits and star crazed breaks in the gel coat, the dash was a 2mm ally sheet with holes evrywhere, felt tip pen was used to indicate the direction of the brake balance! (see photo's) the airbox was from a Hyabusa and the most dreadful lash up in adapting it to the Kawasaki. I had to get another one and fabricate it to fit the throttle bodies correctly (again photo's show the difference) I'm not happy with this airbox set up but I will improve it soon.

I completely stripped and repaired all of the fibreglass body and changed the colour from white to red. the engine remained untouched (until this weekend) but I installed a paddle shift system, new dash, new seat, new brakes and disc, rev lights and digital gear indicator. I did buy it as a project and continue to improve where I can. It has no fuel guage which is annoying so that will be added whilst the body is off but I have to alter the tank design to fit a VDO tube guage first. (any one with tig welding skills in the East Sussex area care to offer to help?) If I had the time I would have completely stripped it down and done a ground up rebuild but bloody work keeps getting in the way.

How this car finished a race, let alone a season is a mystery to me?

I just use it for track days now, although I did consider racing but when you do the sums, the track time when racing/qualifying and practice against track time on a track days the two don't compare and I decide its not worth it.

RB

 

[Shox Dr]

The B1 engine and ECU are far better. Mate had one 187BHP

 

[Norm]

Nice job on both the car and the dolly's, It's great when something you've made yourself works out

Regards Norm

 

[AreBee]

You may well be right regarding the Engine Shox, but when I also had the wiring loom remade for the A1 engine at around a grand when I got the car as the original loom wasn't to clever I'm pretty much tied to the present model. I did look at the B1 when I started the hunt for a replacement unit but the subtle changes to the B1 mean a reworking of the loom and a new ECU.

I hope to increase the HP as I have installed a power commander although I need to get that dyno'd when the new engine is installed

It's plenty rapid though I can tell ya. Fully fuelled it only weighs 480kg (shame about its lard **** driver though)

Thanks Norm, I agree, not only that, it has spurred me on to consider other projects especially when I build a new workshop this year.

 

[stuvy]

I used to race and prep a few cars for the RGB series but a fall out with my race partner stopped me playing with them. My second guess was the mission for the life of me i cant rember the guy that had the first one in the series i think it was blue the guys name could have been gordon, it was a few years ago now though. I do agree with the track days option as you only need one red flag and thats your session over!

 

[Coo]

Great improvement, well done

 

[AreBee]

Hiya, your names not andy is it? and do i recognise that as the sabre car?

Stuvy, I just made the link with the Andy and Sabre reference you made. I don't know why it didn't dawn on me sooner.

You are thinking of Andy Bates of AB Engineering. He builds the Sabre. Why should I suddenly know this? The new engine is coming from Andy. He appeared on Dragons Den with the Sabre cars looking for investment and one of them invested. (Shame that as when I tried to haggle the VAT away on the engine for cash, Andy said he couldn't because of the Dragons involvement).

And right again there was one in blue and red in the RGB class a few years ago (2007) and if you follow this link you will see it racing Rob Baldwin's BDN S2. Stick with it and the Mission will appear and there is a real ding dong for the lead until the mission spins out at Paddock Hill. The design is a little different as the one in the RGB is a single cockpit and has no rear wing. It had an external front light fittings on the front to qualify for the RGB I seen to remember, looked weird.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ymVSFOO9g&feature=related

Derrrrr! Sorry mate - senior moment!

RB

 

[BeeJay99]

I came across an old post here on the forum in which someone had the exact same requirement and to which someone else had suggested a simple by very versitile 50mm & 40mm jack and dolly system.
RB

I was probably that someone. Unfortunately just after having the steel delivered last Easter I became unwell and the dollys remain unbuilt. I was just looking at the steel this afternoon and, now being fully recovered, I decided to start constructing them. Blow me down I came in and found this thread this evening.
I planned to do exactly as you have done except I was going to make them fixed width and to have cross members supporting the car rather than use four points as in your design.
How stable are they when you roll the car around? My garage floor is a bit irregular and I'm concerned that the dollys would move relative to each other so planned to have a lengthwise drop in link to prevent this; perhaps that's not neccessary.

 

[AreBee]

Hello BJ,

If you had the race car that you wanted to put on a stand then I think it was you. Sorry to hear you haven't been well.

I must admit I wasn’t sure about stability but I needn’t have worried as it seems to be fine.

I too thought about having a cross member as opposed to the four points. And I still can if I want. That’s the beauty of the box section design you can interchange the way you terminate the vertical supports (jacks). My tie bars below can be adjusted on the castor bearer by having a captive nut on the 500mm box that allows the tie bars to slide though ( I have nuts on each bearer). This allows me to tighten the M10 nuts I have used onto the 400mm to lock the two sections together. To be honest the tie bars might be a little wide for the width of the car but I can cut them if needs be or replace them with shorter lengths. There is a little movement of the vertical box section because of the gaps that exist between the 50mm and the 40mm but if this was an issue small wedges could be used I suppose but once the weight is on them it doesn’t notice.

The pads that sit atop the four jacks are, in my case, removable. They are just a square 3mm plate with a section of 300 box section (150mm long) welded to the centre that then they simple telescope into the box section (I stuck a bit of foam on the other side). If you wanted to use a cross member (400mm box section would do) you could weld a couple of 150mm long lengths of 300mm box at your required spacing on the underside of the beam and simply locate them securely into the top of the jacks. Or even fabricate a complete frame with 4x300mm box locating lugs welded at the corners or where you felt was best and to fit them into the jacks. It’s very flexible.

I have a double garage with a centre RSJ spanning two brick piers front and back. I fixed a 1 ton beam clamp (Machine Mart) to it and slung a half ton chain hoist (manual chain hoist) to that.

This is where it got interesting as I used the roll over bar on the car as my rigging point which lifted the car effortlessly. Problem was that this isn’t the centre of gravity and you need the car to be near level. As I’m well versed with rigging entertainment lighting rigs I was able to calculate and make a bridle to the COG region. I will make a removable anchor that fits into the cockpit at the COG point for when I want to lift the car when its body is back on. When I lowered the car onto the dollies the weight of the car as I had them wanted to tip up at the back (only slightly). But because the two dollies are totally independent from each other I could just wheel the rear set back until the weight was evenly distributed. I will be making axle stand tops to fit into the jacks for another option but I ran out of box .

I have fitted 100mm castored wheels, 4 with brakes on and fitted a braked castor on each section. I did make a slight error by ordering castors with plates on them rather than single spindle type but rather than the phaf of sending them back I just fabricated some 3 mm plates and drilled holes to accept the castor plate holes and welded them on at the end of the bearer section and bolted on the castors. Each castor can take 150kg. It wheels around the garage a treat but my garage is nice and smooth. I can spin the car around on its axis so can work on it at any position that suits me. And as I said I don’t have to lean over the car.

If you want me to take photos of any of the build PM me and tell me what you need.

RB

 

[BeeJay99]

RB
Many thanks for the reply and in particular your reassurances about stability. At the moment I lift my Mallock onto trestles using the same system as you except that I haven't made a bridle so each lift is a bit of an adventure... Lift car a short way, place spare wheels in car to alter CG, lift car a bit further, adjust spare wheels as required etc.
For now I am happy with where I am going with this but I will get in touch if I think you can help; many thanks for the offer.