Building A Cheap Body Dolly

I’ve needed a body cart, or dolly so many times, but the cost seems prohibitive for what they are. The homebuilt plans I’ve seen get overly complex, and many are a major storage problem too. So I put one together for about $300 in material, and as few pieces as possible. This one knocks down and stores in a corner easily, and sets up in about 2 minutes. The 3” and 2.5” square tubing is 3/16” wall which is very heavy. If I had to do it over again, I’d use ¼” wall. It will do the job just fine and cut the cost for the steel in half. The casters are Harbor Freight solid rubber with an integral brake – I think they are rated at 600 or 800 lbs. each. My little mig can’t handle the wall size, so I tacked it together and ran it over to a welding shop to make sure I got decent penetration. If you go with the lighter wall size, and can handle the welding yourself, I think you can get the whole project done for around $200 and a few hours of time. I have several photos which should give you a fairly good idea of how it all goes together. I built this one to handle primarily cars, but modifying the length of the uprights to fit an early is easy. Not as much fun as working on your project, but when it’s done it makes that project a heck of a lot easier to work on!

Fantastic idea man. I Love how we all think outside the box when it comes to getting things done for our vehicular love.

Looking good!
I've got the one body up on a rotisserie, but I plan on using the body mounts and adding casters so I can move it around off the thing.

You can also build mounts at the front leaf spring mounts and add casters there. So long as the ground is smooth and the mounts fairly short, you won't need cross braces.