WOW! That dolly sure is low to the ground. Most dollies angle the tongue up to meet the hitch, i would need at least a 12" drop hitch or more to hook that dolly up to my RV. And i have a low height gas RV. Go through these casters and see if you can find one small enough to mount just behind the brake controller on the tongue. At $3.00 or less each, pick up a couple for spares in case they break.
1995brave wrote: WOW! That dolly sure is low to the ground. Most dollies angle the tongue up to meet the hitch, i would need at least a 12" drop hitch or more to hook that dolly up to my RV. And i have a low height gas RV.
Well, instructions for the EZE dolly say you need a hitch height between 12 and 16" (from bottom of coupler to the ground). Yes, I'm going to need a drop bar to get to the upper range of that, I'm thinking about a 5" drop bar will do it. Dealer tells me the MH's receiver height is 21", but I'm not going to buy the drop bar until I have the MH here and can make my own measurements.
Quote: Go through these casters and see if you can find one small enough to mount just behind the brake controller on the tongue. At $3.00 or less each, pick up a couple for spares in case they break.
I'd like to do that (permanently mount a caster wheel), but I'm just afraid a permanently mounted wheel under the tongue will get demolished and/or damage the dolly A frame the first time I go over a bump, or up any incline where the MH back end drops down briefly. I think this needs to be a removable wheel that comes off when towing.
I thought about having a welder weld a 2" ball to some kind of caster wheel, like previously mentioned. That would definitely eliminate any concerns over ground clearance loss. Only concern is that the ball mount would allow too much movement, allowing the caster wheel to sit sideways, making movement difficult.
Quote: I thought about having a welder weld a 2" ball to some kind of caster wheel, like previously mentioned. That would definitely eliminate any concerns over ground clearance loss. Only concern is that the ball mount would allow too much movement, allowing the caster wheel to sit sideways, making movement difficult.
Will
Actually that would work. Just have him place a bar across the back edge so when the caster and ball is placed in the receiver the bar rests against the back of the receiver, thus no movement.
Quote: I thought about having a welder weld a 2" ball to some kind of caster wheel, like previously mentioned. That would definitely eliminate any concerns over ground clearance loss. Only concern is that the ball mount would allow too much movement, allowing the caster wheel to sit sideways, making movement difficult.
Will
Actually that would work. Just have him place a bar across the back edge so when the caster and ball is placed in the receiver the bar rests against the back of the receiver, thus no movement.
Hmmm...good point.
What if I ordered a 2" ball like THIS one, had it welded directly to the mounting plate of an caster wheel like THIS one? I'm thinking with that approach, no extra bars would be necessary, because the plate of the caster would be right up against bottom of hitch coupler, preventing any unwanted 'movement'.
I'm kinda liking this idea. No extra welding or attaching to the dolly itself, no changes to its ground clearance. Just a ball hitch attachment to put on..
Well, local mechanic/welder came by today, and we came up with a cool solution similar to the one discussed above, that I really like:
He is going to take THIS 6" trailer jack wheel I already have, weld a caster plate similar to THIS to the top of jack wheel. Then, drill a hole in the center of the caster plate, run a large bolt through it (welded in place) sticking straight up.
The coupler on the dolly has a hole in the middle at the top. So, I can just slide the bolt up through the coupler, and put a wing nut on to hold it in place on the coupler. I honestly had not thought of using a bolt like that on the coupler, and like that approach much better.
Very similar to what we talked about in the previous two posts, but using a bolt instead of a 2" ball to hold the caster wheel onto the coupler. Done almost completely using parts I have/had laying around, so will cost very little $$.
To make it even more cool, he said he'd weld a bracket onto the caster wheel, and attach a 4' bar/handle to it, so I can push or pull the dolly around without having to bend down to it.
Anyway, this probably sounds confusing, I may not be explaining it right. Once we have this done (sometime next week), I'll take pictures of it and post them on this thread, so it will be more clear. This should give us exactly what I had in mind - dolly will be low enough it can easily fit under the MH, and will be very easy to move around.
Thanks to all, for the suggestions.
Will
* This post was
edited 02/25/12 07:03pm by willald *
tahiti16 wrote: I think instead of welding the handle to it I would make tthe handle detachable...
Sorry, I shoulda been more clear. The handle will be detachable. We are welding a small bracket to the caster wheel, that the handle can attach and re-attach to with a cotter pin.
You're right, I definitely wouldnt want the handle permanently attached to it. There are some cases where you wouldnt want the handle on it, like when pushing the dolly from behind, to put it underneath the back of the MH.
Update: Still working on this. Long story short, I found that for various reasons, the design we were going to do just would not work as I had hoped. That being the case, I kinda had to go back to the drawing board and start over. New approach is same basic thing, a wheel that mounts to ball coupler via a bolt and wing nut, but built differently, without any welding.
Basically, what I'm doing is mounting a 4" lag bolt through a short piece of (treated) 2x4, that will attach to the ball coupler through the hole at the top and a wing nut. Other (bottom) side of 2x4 has a 5" caster wheel (from Harbor Freight) bolted to it. That much is done, and works great. Now, I'm working on attaching a bracket to it to mount the handle.
I will post pictures once its done, because a picture will definitely be worth a thousand words here, and I think its going to be really cool. Will make moving the dolly around VERY easy, and easily make it possible to stow most of the dolly under the MH out of the way. May be another week or two before I get it done and get pictures posted, because we're kinda busy this week getting ready to bring home the MH (tomorrow! woohoo!)
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