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Real-world puzzle - moving 400lb box 200'


Scruit

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The largest piece inside the box is the gokart chassis, engine, drivetrain and running gear mostly assembled already. No wheels though, and the coilovers have to be installed. The loose pieces are the roof, fenders, wheels, coilovers and battery. I'd have to take the whole box apart and install the suspension and wheels on the treelawn of a busy 55mph (avg speed is closer to 70mph) road then freewheel the thing back to the workshop, then go back for the 20 lbs of remaining parts. Remembering the truck driver is in a semi and can't drop it into my driveway I'd still have to figure out how to move the nearly 400lb box across a the road onto the

I've used the "open the box and carry the parts" technique with flat-pack furniture, but I already know that well over 300lbs of that 385lb box is a single assembly with no wheels installed yet.

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I use a dolly to move 500 pound 55 gallon drums of chemical all day long at work whats the issue with the dolly?

2 things.

1) Gravel

2) The box will start and finish flat, and to use the dolly in a traditional way I would have to lift it up onto one end. 400 lb box is heavier than I can lift from the ground to a vertical position. If it started and finished vertical (like moving a fridge etc) then that would be no problem. But this is more like moving a golf cart, in a box, on dolly.

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Buy borrow or steal two flat mover's dollies. They really come in handy more often than you think. I use mine quite often. Even just moving a couch around to rearrange can be an easy one person job with them.

here are some cheapies....

http://www.harborfreight.com/1000-lb-capacity-movers-dolly-38970.html

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Buy borrow or steal two flat mover's dollies. They really come in handy more often than you think. I use mine quite often. Even just moving a couch around to rearrange can be an easy one person job with them.

here are some cheapies....

http://www.harborfreight.com/1000-lb-capacity-movers-dolly-38970.html

Wheels are too small for the gravel. The hand truck I have has ~8" tires and they are the smallest wheels I can find that don't dig in to the gravel.

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Got my solution...

Made a trailer from my hand truck by adding front wheels and a tow hook to the handle so I can tow it with the lawn tractor. I don't have much turning radius, so I have to remember that.

2012-06-10_15-46-00_722.jpg

The liftgate of the semi can be lowered down to the level of the "floor" of this new "trailer", then the box can be easily slid onto the trailer. Then I can roll it away from the liftgate, hook it into the tractor and then tow it to the workshop.

Not pretty, but it will work fine for this one time.

Just make sure you get the heavy side (there will be one much heavier than the others, I'm guessing) over the big wheels, or it's going over!

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K, so it's done. The hand-truck-trailer worked great except for the fact the the floor of the box was cardboard instead of a wood pallet so it slumped to the side a little when the floor pressed in.

There's no way I could have hoisted the box up to use the hand truck normally - the weight distribution of the box was off and the box was falling apart already. My advice to anyone else trying this would be to bolt a plywood "floor" to the hand truck.

The body of the cart weighs about 325lbs so I'll have to use the jack to get the wheels on - definitely wouldn't like to have unpacked all the loose stuff by the side of the road and assembled the wheels there... :o

Still, using this technique it took my 2 mins to get the box from the road to the workshop and set on the floor ready to work on it.

2012_06_12_12_28_29.jpg

cart.jpg

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