The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors My way too easy Door Dolly

Ready to install my passenger door after installing new door weather stripping and rebuilt hinges. Felt it was too much work welding up a fancy door dolly for a floor jack application, when I have a cherry picker, sitting there, lonely, nothing to do.

http://cmaynard.com/Truck/TruckDoorDollyA.JPG

http://cmaynard.com/Truck/TruckDoorDollyB.JPG

http://cmaynard.com/Truck/TruckDoorDollyC.JPG

Nice

I remember damaging my paint fighting by myself

Good idea! I like it!

Jeez, I wish I had a cherry picker laying around... I could of saved myself from welding up a door dolly for my floor jack!

It looks like you could even open and close the door for testing if the hooks were on the exterior.
I like it.

Thanks Craig- That'll be clutch when the time comes!

Brad

I did have to open up the hooks a little with heat to allow the ends to slide up into the glass channel without having the loops touch the door's surface. CASO, I think the hooks would interfere with the cab if you attempted to close the door while being supported. Maybe not? Maybe so?

It 'appeared' to me it's doable with a little more Hook modification. It sure would speed up the process. ( if time was a factor)

I have the 1 ton HF gantry crane... same principal... yeah.. helps out a TON (pun!)

Good idea Craig, never would have thought of that, I did mine a
few times balancing them on the floor jack, balanced them once
on my "big old wife", the floor jack was more cooperative!

Expanding on that idea, since I'm planning on working on many
more doors for AD trucks, I thought I'd come up with something
a bit more permanent. A guy never has enough tools you know:
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/159697608

DG

I ended up building a poor man or redneck lifting cradle for my doors on the 52. Just used some leftover lumber; 2x6 and 2x4s along with four pieces of rebar I inserted in holes I drilled in the top 2x6 plate. I covered the rebar with some leftover foam pipe insulation and put a chunk of foam on the top of the 2x6 board on the top. I bolted the contraption to my floor jack. Believe it or not it worked pretty good. It isn't nice like the metal one shown on one of the tech tips but it was cheap and something I could do without a bunch of metalworking equipment. I had also thought about using the cherry picker but the room between my bench and the right door was limited.

Steve

Well thanks to Craig for striking the spark about using a cherry picker to hang the
doors, I made up my version of a dedicated sling for the one fisted bulky-door
handling situation.
Three bucks worth of 22ga. 12x12 and a few minutes in the
shop of chopping and filing and here it is:
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/159879959/large
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Thanks for the tip all...........looks as if we all can use/make....
Dan

$3 worth of steel, a hundred for the dies to stamp the holes and a few grand for the press to do the stamping.

Even a 1 ton arbor press is gonna be over $100. So $3 in steel, $hundreds in tooling.

$6 nylon strap sounds like a good deal in comparison.

From previous post
"$3 worth of steel, a hundred for the dies to stamp the holes and a few grand for the press to do the stamping.

Even a 1 ton arbor press is gonna be over $100. So $3 in steel, $hundreds in tooling.

$6 nylon strap sounds like a good deal in comparison."



ASSuming one is limited in their creative abilities to the point that making a hole in a $3 piece of steel is only possible by using a press and die, I guess I see your point.

Why a drill press, hole saw and a little file/die grinder work or a hand drill and a jig saw with a metal blade or even a plasma torch are not viable options that occur to you as less costly options... I do not know.

Ya orta know by now CASO, certain people just have a knack for
turning a thread negative or throwing a wrench in the works
of every project.
I've asked politely for those certain people not to comment to
anything that I post but I guess it's fallen on deaf ears.
Your quite correct, anyone with the simplest of tools could do
the same thing that I did, a hole saw, file, couple of clamps,
some scrap iron and a bench for a break and you could make
the same tool.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

I'm going to make one tonight with tools I dig out of the dumpster.

Out of metal scraps I find on the side of the road.

Just to spite the negative comments. (Which are getting old with incorrect haiku)

I like it a lot Denny & I ESPECIALLY like that you shared the plan/design/drawing picture. As Craig did, and Steve's material list, et cetera...Good stuff, thx all. I may have my disassembled truck back to me in pieces & freshly painted here in the next couple of weeks- never had to deal with being careful with the parts before. All these foam, rubber, & insulation additions to ideas are starting to make sense.

Brad

Brad... are you insinuating I do due do Haiku?
Still, I hope that old road sign you find isn't resentful of your using other castaways in new ways and your able to save face (of fresh paint) on your reclaimed parts

Nah, caso- I was in agreement with you. The three line prose just reminded me of it (haiku); I don't even know if it is three lines or not. I didn't see any easy picking roadside finds on the way home either.

Charlie & his text topic guillotine will be here shortly, lol!

Brad

A dairy farmer, part-time preacher always said about people who were obtuse, cantankerous, or otherwise annoying, "We need people like him" as well as, "Bless his heart." I never asked him to elaborate. I figured that he was either employing discrete sarcasm, or that people like that make the rest of us feel better about ourselves, in that WE are not like that.
Carl

'Bless his heart' Carl, what ever that means.

dg

Urban Dictionary (even though this is a common Southern or Bible Belt expression):

bless your heart : bless his heart : bless her heart

"A term used prior to ridiculing, insulting the sensibilities of, or pointing out the shortcomings of someone. Used to soften the blow of a statement, and can render nearly any comment, no matter how brash or distasteful, socially acceptable."

So great to see good solutions, ALL of them, from the simple to the complex. The concept is called brainstorming, throwing a lot of ideas out there...from the ridiculous to the sublime. What a waste of time to openly state, "This is not for me!" Oh yeah, "Bless ALL our hearts!"

Or, stated as a haiku:

5 \
7 > counted as syllables
5 /

bless our helpful hearts
it seems like we do mean well
most posts are friendly

Now can we finally hang that darn door!!!!!


dg

Craig, thanks for posting that simple reminder of using what we've got. Keep those good ideas coming...nice shop by the way.

Well I put the 'sling' to work aligning the doors today. Works great:
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/160192883

Makes aligning the beltline easy:
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/160192936

dg

I hung my doors the old fashioned way. I picked them up, slid them on the hinges. But before I did that..... When I was doing the body work and test fitting everything before I painted and I had the doors lined up I drilled a few 1/8" holes through the door and the hinge straps. Then inserted cotter pins and removed the bolts. When I was ready I held the door by hand, pulled the pins and slid the door off the hinges. When I installed them I attached a thick blanket to the front of the door jamb to keep the door from sliding into it, picked the door up, slid it on the hinges and put the cotter pins back in. It automatically lines the door back up to where I had originally fit it. Then I put the bolts in.

And hope the guy that adjusted the doors the time before you got it right.

dg

It's So BIG Denny!
I couldn't help but laugh when I saw it man.
I think we need to come up with something more between your engine hoist and a IV stand.
Closer to the IV stand...
that fits in the garage...

(just messing with ya)

You do it your way, I'll do it mine.
I've been accused of looking for the easy way out many times,
rather than fumbling around and taking the hard way of doing a
job. Depends on where you stand I suppose. One can look at it a
couple different ways, as either I'm lazy or I'm wise. The easy
way always seems the wise way to approach a problem in my mind.
Besides, I can control my engine hoist easier than I can
control my "big old wife", that third hand make the job of
adjusting the door a pleasure instead of a pain.
Sorry if you don't have room for an engine hoist, maybe you
need a bigger garage if you'r gonna work on your own Stovebolt?

dg

But Denny.... It's NOT IN the garage

I still like your hanger piece a lot and I get using the tools you have on hand, but... Its So BIG!
I guess I just want to see a hanging set up like your's thats as small a footprint like my floor jack I guess it's off to the medical supply store for a couple IV bag stands...

Bottom line is,use the tools you have available.
Denny is showing his way,he's fortunate to have some really nice equipment and tools.
Anybody can set a door with some patience.


Tim

But its so fun messing with Denny! Actually, his solution is pretty decent. You could use two smaller ones too. What I like about this site is, we can mess with our friends here without them getting all BENT about it, AND we learn new things along the way!

Riiight. been wrestling with those doors by hand or with a jack
or with my wife or daughter before and when I saw Craig's idea
about using your cherry picker I thought he'd stumbled on the
right solution, and it was. Made a super easy one man job of
this task, doors close nice and easy now and line up and it
only took a few minutes.
Gotta go, can't play any more, Mom's callin' me in for supper.
dg

Yep. That was THE solution for sure.