Modifications to the HF 4 and 5 drawer service carts - what changes have you made?

twinturbogarage · Mar 1, 2015

PelicanPines said:
Use them all the time in my house to hang stuff... I didn't think to use them for tools until... I tried using a large hook to hold a tire pressure gauge near my compressor but it failed after a year or so. I replaced it with more substantial screwed in hardware.

I was thinking about it failing due to the cold weather, in say a garage, put they sell cold weather strips so for me hopefully it will be perfect. I'm sure they're probably more expensive than conventional hooks.

SalahHH83 · Mar 3, 2015

paigej said:
Here's the rest of it

You win the thread!

paigej · Mar 3, 2015

Nope, not even close! Wait till you get to the detailing cart. I ran out of room and had to do this

paigej · Mar 3, 2015

And then get this

Mcjohn925 · Mar 3, 2015

I picked the red shelf up today and used the 25% off coupon. Next is some sort of cover for the lid since I can't get the clear mylar from work anymore.

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ex-x-fire · Mar 4, 2015

Mcjohn925 said:
I picked the red shelf up today and used the 25% off coupon. Next is some sort of cover for the lid since I can't get the clear mylar from work anymore.

Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Tapatalk

What was the bottom line? Usually cheaper with the $165 coupon.

Mcjohn925 · Mar 4, 2015

ex-x-fire said:
What was the bottom line? Usually cheaper with the $165 coupon.

I didn't buy the cart shelf. I bought the folding side shelf and its listed at 19.99 and with coupon cost was 14.99 plus tax. I got the 5 drawer red cart in January and used the 165 coupon for that.

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metalgod3082 · Mar 4, 2015

Here's my cart with the mods i've done so far. Still need to mount my HF 18" magnets to the lid. Did some closeups of how I installed the snap-on hinges. Used a step drill bit from HF to widen the holes on hinge part that connects to the lid.

ex-x-fire · Mar 4, 2015

Mcjohn925 said:
I didn't buy the cart shelf. I bought the folding side shelf and its listed at 19.99 and with coupon cost was 14.99 plus tax. I got the 5 drawer red cart in January and used the 165 coupon for that.

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Oh, sorry. I didn't read it right. 15 bucks for the self aint bad at all.

jhama78 · Mar 5, 2015

Just picked up a 2nd 4 drawer cart yesterday for 107 and am planning on stacking it under my existing 4 drawer cart. I'll post pics this weekend after I get it done. Those that have done this, what if anything would you have done different?

SASORacing · Mar 5, 2015

Call me crazy but I think you are crazy for not keeping the GAS hinges, I love them! So easy just lift the lid up with my pinky and up the lid goes and stays! So nice. Great cart.

PelicanPines · Mar 5, 2015

SASORacing said:
Call me crazy but I think you are crazy for not keeping the GAS hinges, I love them! So easy just lift the lid up with my pinky and up the lid goes and stays! So nice. Great cart.

Getting the lid to 90 degrees adds tons of storage on the underside of the lid.

archirelic · Mar 5, 2015

PelicanPines said:
Getting the lid to 90 degrees adds tons of storage on the underside of the lid.

I guess for someone like myself who always closes his lid, getting the lid to that 90 degrees isn't that important. I can definitely see if I frequently left the top open with tall items in it how it would be beneficial though.

metalgod3082 · Mar 5, 2015

Yeah I plan on putting magnets and wrenches on the lid and I've heard the extra weight on the lid ruins the shocks pretty quickly so I figured I would just put the hinges on now. If I wasn't putting anything on the lid I would probably keep the shocks however.

davidnx2k · Mar 5, 2015

davidnx2k · Mar 5, 2015

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=4261&pictureid=48742

Jarhead0408 · Mar 6, 2015

Alright, ^^^ Now we need some info!!

davidnx2k · Mar 6, 2015

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=4261&pictureid=48743

davidnx2k · Mar 6, 2015

It now has 6 drawers and relocated gas struts to theoutside and modified the top so that it has a larger flat work area, I will try to post beter quality pictures tomorrow if im not too busy.

SASORacing · Mar 6, 2015

90 degrees? You can drill the stock gas shock holes closer to the rear to get it to open straight up. If thats what your talking about, it just takes a drill and a drill bit. Unless you are talking about folding flat.
I like the gas shocks though! It adds a nice luxurious touch to the cart.

Tucker99 · Mar 6, 2015

Any of you guys sitting the fence on this cart; a guy posted up a coupon on the HF coupon thread for $163.78. Cheapest price I've seen yet for this cart.

metalgod3082 · Mar 6, 2015

SASORacing said:
90 degrees? You can drill the stock gas shock holes closer to the rear to get it to open straight up. If thats what your talking about, it just takes a drill and a drill bit. Unless you are talking about folding flat.
I like the gas shocks though! It adds a nice luxurious touch to the cart.

The lid won't close all the way then. From what I read you would have to get a different gas shock to make it work correctly and possibly reposition where it attaches to the lid as well. I think people here have tried it.

Bagherra · Mar 6, 2015

Tucker99 said:
Any of you guys sitting the fence on this cart; a guy posted up a coupon on the HF coupon thread for $163.78. Cheapest price I've seen yet for this cart.

Yeah...I need to stop screwing around and pick one of these up...Was picking up some things there today and they had one of the 5 drawer carts that was "open". It was only $150. Couldn't tell if everything was in it or not. The baf of nuts an bolts wasn't opened so.....

lsurip · Mar 6, 2015

This is my Harbor Freight service cart, I got a couple of weeks ago. Cant say enough good things about this cart, I love it! I installed the side tray and paper towel holder, thats about it. This is my first post on the forum btw!

skulldrinker · Mar 7, 2015

lsurip said:
This is my Harbor Freight service cart, I got a couple of weeks ago. Cant say enough good things about this cart, I love it! I installed the side tray and paper towel holder, thats about it. This is my first post on the forum btw!

I like the Sniper sticker ! Cool Idea for the paper towel placement.

SalahHH83 · Mar 7, 2015

I recently got a 44" HF cabinet but want some more small drawers/place to store sockets. I considered trying to find a scratch n dent top part of the HF 26" cabinet but I like the idea of storing the sockets in the top of the service cart. My issue is the only area I have to store the cart in my garage would be under my work bench. My work bench surface is right at 40" and made w 2x4s so that gives me approx. 36.5" of clearance underneath the bench.

The black cart (38" closed) is shorter than the red cart (41.75" closed). I've considered either finding much lower profile casters (the stock ones add a total height of approx. 6.5" to each cart) OR cutting down the legs on the cart (and re-drilling the holes) to lower its overall height to fit it under the work bench. That would cause me to lose some height on the bottom shelf area of the cart, but I'm not overly concerned with that. I'm wondering if anyone else has run into this issue and what they've done. Ideally I'd love to find a cart at HF with some legs that are bent near the bottom so I can buy it for cheap and then cut it down

The area I'm talking about is underneath the bench where the white plastic Rubbermaid container is in this picture.

mdbeck1 · Mar 7, 2015

SalahHH83 said:
...My issue is the only area I have to store the cart in my garage would be under my work bench. My work bench surface is right at 40" and made w 2x4s so that gives me approx. 36.5" of clearance underneath the bench.

...cutting down the legs on the cart (and re-drilling the holes) to lower its overall height to fit it under the work bench. That would cause me to lose some height on the bottom shelf area of the cart, but I'm not overly concerned with that. I'm wondering if anyone else has run into this issue and what they've done....

The area I'm talking about is underneath the bench where the white plastic Rubbermaid container is in this picture.

I had a similar problem with my red HF cart. I had a Gorilla rack that I wanted to store my carts under. To get the HF cart under I had shortened the angle iron sides by about four inches. I pulled the cart apart and shorten the angle iron uprights. You have to redrill the holes for the base. Re-assemble and use as designed.

Sorry no pics. The whole process took an hour or two.

SalahHH83 · Mar 7, 2015

mdbeck1 said:
I had a similar problem with my red HF cart. I had a Gorilla rack that I wanted to store my carts under. To get the HF cart under I had shortened the angle iron sides by about four inches. I pulled the cart apart and shorten the angle iron uprights. You have to redrill the holes for the base. Re-assemble and use as designed.

Sorry no pics. The whole process took an hour or two.

Thanks for the response as this is exactly what I'm thinking of doing! I'd rather cut the angle iron legs than replace the casters bc 1) it's less expensive and 2) smaller casters would be more difficult to maneuver over cracks/**** on the ground, etc. I'd likely be cutting about 5.25" off of the red one to make it fit. Do you feel like your cart is too low with the 4" cut off of it? If it was about 1.5" lower than what yours is now, would that be too low in your opinion? Thanks so much

mdbeck1 · Mar 7, 2015

SalahHH83 said:
Thanks for the response as this is exactly what I'm thinking of doing! I'd rather cut the angle iron legs than replace the casters bc 1) it's less expensive and 2) smaller casters would be more difficult to maneuver over cracks/**** on the ground, etc. I'd likely be cutting about 5.25" off of the red one to make it fit. Do you feel like your cart is too low with the 4" cut off of it? If it was about 1.5" lower than what yours is now, would that be too low in your opinion? Thanks so much

I have reloading equipment in mine and use the top for the powder scale. My height works pretty good for me. A little lower wouldn't hurt. If you want to do a trial take the casters off of your stand see if that it too low for you. I'm guessing that the casters are going to be about four inches.

80z28s6 · Mar 7, 2015

mdbeck1, could you post a pic of your reloading setup. I have a 650, have not set it up yet due to the fact a can not come to drill holes in my stainless top on my bench.

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mdbeck1 · Mar 7, 2015

80z28s6 said:
mdbeck1, could you post a pic of your reloading setup. I have a 650, have not set it up yet due to the fact a can not come to drill holes in my stainless top on my bench.

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Right now it's packed away. Mostly in the 5 drawer service cart. I've been installing new cabinets and re-organizing everything. Not much time for reloading but I'll need to do that soon since I'm running a little low on ammo.

Basically I have two holes drilled into my main workbench (wooden top). That's enough to bolt my single stage press on to the bench. The only other thing that really needs to be bolted down is my case trimmer and I usually just bolt that to a piece of wood and put it into the vice.

If you really don't want to drill holes in your workbench you can mount the press on a piece of wood and clamp that to the workbench top. It would be better if you could mount it to the back as well as the front.

Cubic Inches · Mar 8, 2015

Haven't made any modifications to it yet, but this 4 drawer cart is gonna be awesome at work.

ichabod · Mar 11, 2015

put a wood top on

added a paper towel holder

ndnchf · Mar 11, 2015

I started this thread over three years ago. It is gratifying to see so many guys contributing to and showing so many great modifications. Keep it going guys!

skulldrinker · Mar 11, 2015

ndnchf said:
I started this thread over three years ago. It is gratifying to see so many guys contributing to and showing so many great modifications. Keep it going guys!

It's all your fault. :rocker:

QtrHorse13 · Mar 12, 2015

ichabod said:
added a paper towel holder

What did you use to make the paper towel holder? It looks like that 80/20 aluminum type extrusion.

davidnx2k · Mar 12, 2015

View media item 48871
i just got this one last weekend

davidnx2k · Mar 12, 2015

View media item 48872
it holds all my tools no problem

davidnx2k · Mar 12, 2015

View media item 48880

Jarhead0408 · Mar 12, 2015

^^^ That is AWESOME man. Good job on that.

Modifications to the HF 4 and 5 drawer service carts - what changes have you made?

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