Expansion Joints and Casters

[spectre6000]

I have a ~6000 inop truck I need to move around my garage. Initially, I need to move it further to the side so my wife can park her Jeep (and we can swap tops for summer), but also I will be moving it around to gain access to different parts of the truck, park my soon-to-be-acquired daily driver, etc.

I did the research, and it seems the 6200 pound GoJak set was the way to go. Ordered and en route. As expensive as those things are, I want to protect the investment and not make things any more difficult for myself than I need to.

The garage has some pretty large expansion joints, and I need to figure out some way to allow the GoJaks to go smoothly over them. I'm renting while we get our house built, so I can't do anything too permanent like a filler/sealer.

In the past with regular floor jacks, I've used wooden dowels to reduce the breadth and depth of expansion joints while rolling it around unloaded or with lighter things on them, but I feel this will prove to be a different animal both in terms of load and the size/shape of the expansion joints.

Any suggestions?

 

[Cyberbear]

I'm not sure, but it seems that forcing anything under a load into the expansion joints may cause problems with cracks starting to form. Perhaps a couple of 4,000 lb. rated pallet jacks may help to move the big truck around ?

 

[RVDan]

How about filling them with grout? You'll be able to chisel it out pretty easy later.

 

[astroracer]

What/who is it going to hurt if you just fill them with patching cement? Ask your landlord if that would be a problem? I myself don't know why it would be... Fill and forget...
Mark

 

[wssix99]

I would just use regular sand mix. Regular cement in the mix will shrink and it will not bond well to the existing slab. It will crack all to hell and will be easy to chisel out, but if you are looking for something temporary, it should get you by. (Patching cement will expand and lock in. It would be more permanent, durable, and difficult to get out.)

 

[simpler=better]

Polymeric sand will harden pretty well.

Personally, I'd put down some sheet metal wherever the casters are hitting the joints.

 

[Stuart in MN]

The garage has some pretty large expansion joints, and I need to figure out some way to allow the GoJaks to go smoothly over them.

The question is just how large are they? Assuming they're not insanely huge, you may be able to just push the GoJaks right over the joint, once the truck is moving and it has a little momentum.

 

[Ole Slewfoot]

A pound of sand and a few scraps of sheet metal should bridge a crack just fine.
or pick it up by the center with a floor jack as you approach the canyon.

 

[Ironcrow]

Maybe a rigid tray with more casters would more easily roll over the joints?
http://www.attitudegarage.com/equipment/auto-dolly/super-duty-dolly/

 

[spectre6000]

I'm not going to do anything permanent, so grouts and fillers are out.

The sand idea has merit, but I'm not too keen on the cleanup/sand everywhere aspect of it. Especially since it'll have to be laid down/cleaned up every time I move the truck to get access to it to work on it. Still, leading contender at the moment.

I have no idea how big the casters are. Until they get here, I probably won't. Couldn't find those specs, but didn't look too hard either.

Another crappy aspect of these particular expansion joints is that they're anything but uniform... I started to measure to see what would be required (thinking wood again), but I looked a foot to my left and it was maybe only half as deep... They're all about the same (wide) width though. It seems a lip up (thinking sheet metal) might have the same net effect as a pebble, assuming it doesn't just get pushed out of the way and I still end up with a caster in the crack.

Doing the math, I need to support on the order of around 300# at any given caster over any given span of expansion joint. I think wood would withstand that load, but the irregularity of the expansion joints means I'd be custom fitting stringers... Maybe if I could get a billion teeny tiny dowels...

Maybe a handful of toothpicks wrapped in foil (or something else to keep them together but allow them to shift), and placed on an as-needed basis? I have some PT banding (enormous rubber band strips with a billion % markup)... I could tie something up in there... maybe the sand...

 

[spectre6000]

So... Update on this with a bit of a delay. The GoJaks arrived on Saturday and Monday. I ordered a pair of right handed jacks and a pair of left handed jacks (rationale not worth expounding upon in this thread). The former were returns, floor models, or something and required complete disassembly, relubrication, a run to the hardware store to get the missing hardware, and extensive inspection to figure out where a seemingly surplus roll pin came from... Anyway, I finally got them working and...

No fillers necessary. The casters on those things are great! 4 and 5 inches depending on location. I'm pushing around a 6k# truck by myself (admittedly with a fair amount of effort owing to limited size and traction), and it was barely noticeable when the expansion joints came into play. They were there, but it was like a brief click almost, and nothing else. I guess the solution to the problem was really to buy the good wheel dollies.

 

[c39er]

I love my GoJaks too. Joints are not an issue.. mine are the lighter older 5000 series.