spectre6000
Well-known member
I didn't see a review of these when I was researching wheel dollies for my own needs, so I figured I'd leave one here. I have no affiliation with the manufacturer or any retailers.
GoJaks seem to be the HF44 toolbox of the wheel dolly world here on GJ. I really appreciate the lack of brand snobbery in this community evidenced by the resoundingly positive reviews of the tool world's most successful punching bag. So I took it to heart when the GoJaks got so much positive feedback in the same tone. Adding to that, the project (a 6K# truck in a sub-optimal shop space), and my choices for wheel dollies were admittedly limited. I wanted a set that would a) handle the heavy truck with b) fairly large tires and c) only myself for operation, d) eventually support my wife's Jeep with e) larger tires, f) allow long term usage, and g) not leave me needing a bigger/better set down the road since I go through a lot of cars. That's an awfully long list of requirements, and the heaviest duty GoJaks were about the only option on the market owing to their nearly top of the market spec for weight handling, and their nearly top of the market spec for tire width. The only options that exceeded either were the non-jacking variety, and in the event I need to move the vehicle frequently (which is a guaranteed occurrence in my current shop space), I didn't want to have to spend an hour or two in setup/take down every time I wanted to do anything. Combined with such confident and glowingly positive feedback here on GJ, it was decided.
The only other decision was left versus right handed. The company's own website says that the left handers are for the very rare occasion that the vehicle is up against a wall or the wheels are at full lock or something such that the lever on the right handers is inconvenient or inaccessible, and 99% of shops will not require the left handers. I looked around, and they're essentially the same price depending on the vendor, but the left handers are a little less common. The way I figured, if a left hander is a one percent scenario, and from the tone of the manufacturer's description there's no real magic to the orientation of the right handers, they're essentially interchangeable. If the need for a left hander is a 1% scenario and they're interchangeable, it seems a set of left handers would be just as 99% as a set of right handers. A pair of each though, would likely be a 100% solution, and since they're essentially the same price, that's the direction I took. Full set of four, a pair of each side, and the best price I could find new (a CL/eBay aggregator turned up one used listing in the entire country at the time, and I'm not even sure it was a full set and not just a single one). They were some pretty big bucks, but I put them on the same level of acquisition as a lift according to utility, so worth spending the money to do the job right.
So they arrived. The right handed set were badly mangled, slightly used, etc. which was pretty annoying given my expectations for the money spent on new premium tools were that I would receive new premium tools... That's being sorted out with the vendor, but it gave me a chance to see what made them tick (lemonade).
The rollers appear to be nothing more than galvanized tubing. The "races" (according to the manual) they ride on are nothing more than steel discs with a hole and a slot. There's an inner and an outer, and they're the same save one is welded to and powder coated (pink/purple) with the frame. These are greased, and since with heavy use they may see all of a few full rotations a year, probably perfectly adequate.
The frame itself is comprised of square tubing and 1/2" bar stock bent, cut, and welded. Simple. Robust. More than up to the task.
The mechanism is mechanical instead of hydraulic. This was important to me, as I could see them being used in a long term capacity, and hydraulics wouldn't likely handle that well where the mechanical style wouldn't even notice. It's a pretty simple pawl system, and it works very well. I'm small (160#), and the heaviest corner of the truck required me putting some weight on the pedal for the last stroke or two, the rest were all but effortless. There's a flip lever to direct the pawl action in the up or down direction (the position of the lever is the same as the intended direction of travel). The whole mechanism looks to be sturdy. If I were to guess at a failure mode, I would imagine it would either be the pawl tooth/notch interface or the springs that load the mechanism (one of the springs makes a sharp bend in a particular orientation, and that seems sub-optimal). This is conjecture though, as I've not seen any reports of them failing.
The final piece of the puzzle is the casters. There are two different casters, one set on the mechanism side, one on the roller side. The former are 5", the latter 4" diameter. They are some sort of plastic. The bearing in the wheel itself is, according to the manual, "permanently lubricated", though it doesn't appear there are any actual bearings, and it must be relying on high durometer and differing hardnesses for ease of movement. The swivels have ball bearings in (matching pink/purple) plastic retainers. The only assembly required is attaching the casters to the frame with supplied lock nuts, and torquing them to 80 pound feet. That was a bit of a challenge owing to not having a bench set up in the shop yet, and the casters' tendency to turn in the frame.
The manual says to lubricate the bar sans pawl interface and roller races with grease, and lubricate the swivel bearings and mechanism with 30 weight oil every so often. Since the one set came pre-abused, I got to give this a go after cleaning off all the dirty grease and grit, and it was straight forward and simple.
In use, I was pleasantly surprised. The vehicle being moved is big and heavy. The garage floor has very wide shallow expansion joints, and has all manner of ridiculous slope in all the wrong directions and in weird places, but the concrete itself is generally smooth. Lifting the truck on the jacks was easy, and required very little effort save the final few strokes as previously mentioned. These last strokes were not difficult by any means, just required more effort than the previous strokes owing to the fact that they were lifting the truck versus simply compressing the tires. The second all four wheels were off the ground by a cm or so, the truck immediately rolled backward an inch or so due to a combination of an apparent rearward slope and the ease at which the dollies permit movement. It was a fair amount of effort to actually move the truck where I needed it owing to the mass of the truck, the slope, the soles of my shop shoes being worn completely smooth, and the grit on the concrete just outside from where I was required to push, but I was able to move the beast where I needed it. This was done solo, with nominal effort, and quickly. Success!
I had some concerns over the expansion joints and casters being a major problem, but they skipped right over them as if they weren't there. The was a noise, and a brief impulse of increased resistance (like a click more than a push), but they were not phased at all. In fact, while I was assembling the units, I had one assembled and sitting next to one I was assembling. Gravity and the slope of the garage were enough to get it moving on its own without intervention, and even at that very slow speed, the unit skipped right over the excessively wide expansion joints without hesitation.
I did notice that the outer part of the frame removed the paint from the inner part of the frame where they scraped past each other under load, but this seems like expected wear; the grease should prevent any excessive corrosion. I might see about filing down the inlet of the outer frame there just to reduce long term wear, but in a similar manner to the roller races, I doubt it'll prove a liability given its expected use case.
All in all, I'm very pleased with the GoJak dollies. Quality is good, and they get the job done easily and well. For smaller vehicles, maybe one of the lower priced alternatives would suffice. I've seen the HF equivalents (and it looks like a lot of the similarly priced models are the same manufacturer), and I've not seen the same duty GoJaks, so it's not exactly apples to apples, but the difference in quality is definitely worth the extra money. It's absolutely a case of "spend the money, cry once", "is it cheap at twice the price", and all those other "quit wasting time and money, and just buy the right tool for the job" sayings. Very high quality units that do the job very well.
GoJaks seem to be the HF44 toolbox of the wheel dolly world here on GJ. I really appreciate the lack of brand snobbery in this community evidenced by the resoundingly positive reviews of the tool world's most successful punching bag. So I took it to heart when the GoJaks got so much positive feedback in the same tone. Adding to that, the project (a 6K# truck in a sub-optimal shop space), and my choices for wheel dollies were admittedly limited. I wanted a set that would a) handle the heavy truck with b) fairly large tires and c) only myself for operation, d) eventually support my wife's Jeep with e) larger tires, f) allow long term usage, and g) not leave me needing a bigger/better set down the road since I go through a lot of cars. That's an awfully long list of requirements, and the heaviest duty GoJaks were about the only option on the market owing to their nearly top of the market spec for weight handling, and their nearly top of the market spec for tire width. The only options that exceeded either were the non-jacking variety, and in the event I need to move the vehicle frequently (which is a guaranteed occurrence in my current shop space), I didn't want to have to spend an hour or two in setup/take down every time I wanted to do anything. Combined with such confident and glowingly positive feedback here on GJ, it was decided.
The only other decision was left versus right handed. The company's own website says that the left handers are for the very rare occasion that the vehicle is up against a wall or the wheels are at full lock or something such that the lever on the right handers is inconvenient or inaccessible, and 99% of shops will not require the left handers. I looked around, and they're essentially the same price depending on the vendor, but the left handers are a little less common. The way I figured, if a left hander is a one percent scenario, and from the tone of the manufacturer's description there's no real magic to the orientation of the right handers, they're essentially interchangeable. If the need for a left hander is a 1% scenario and they're interchangeable, it seems a set of left handers would be just as 99% as a set of right handers. A pair of each though, would likely be a 100% solution, and since they're essentially the same price, that's the direction I took. Full set of four, a pair of each side, and the best price I could find new (a CL/eBay aggregator turned up one used listing in the entire country at the time, and I'm not even sure it was a full set and not just a single one). They were some pretty big bucks, but I put them on the same level of acquisition as a lift according to utility, so worth spending the money to do the job right.
So they arrived. The right handed set were badly mangled, slightly used, etc. which was pretty annoying given my expectations for the money spent on new premium tools were that I would receive new premium tools... That's being sorted out with the vendor, but it gave me a chance to see what made them tick (lemonade).
The rollers appear to be nothing more than galvanized tubing. The "races" (according to the manual) they ride on are nothing more than steel discs with a hole and a slot. There's an inner and an outer, and they're the same save one is welded to and powder coated (pink/purple) with the frame. These are greased, and since with heavy use they may see all of a few full rotations a year, probably perfectly adequate.
The frame itself is comprised of square tubing and 1/2" bar stock bent, cut, and welded. Simple. Robust. More than up to the task.
The mechanism is mechanical instead of hydraulic. This was important to me, as I could see them being used in a long term capacity, and hydraulics wouldn't likely handle that well where the mechanical style wouldn't even notice. It's a pretty simple pawl system, and it works very well. I'm small (160#), and the heaviest corner of the truck required me putting some weight on the pedal for the last stroke or two, the rest were all but effortless. There's a flip lever to direct the pawl action in the up or down direction (the position of the lever is the same as the intended direction of travel). The whole mechanism looks to be sturdy. If I were to guess at a failure mode, I would imagine it would either be the pawl tooth/notch interface or the springs that load the mechanism (one of the springs makes a sharp bend in a particular orientation, and that seems sub-optimal). This is conjecture though, as I've not seen any reports of them failing.
The final piece of the puzzle is the casters. There are two different casters, one set on the mechanism side, one on the roller side. The former are 5", the latter 4" diameter. They are some sort of plastic. The bearing in the wheel itself is, according to the manual, "permanently lubricated", though it doesn't appear there are any actual bearings, and it must be relying on high durometer and differing hardnesses for ease of movement. The swivels have ball bearings in (matching pink/purple) plastic retainers. The only assembly required is attaching the casters to the frame with supplied lock nuts, and torquing them to 80 pound feet. That was a bit of a challenge owing to not having a bench set up in the shop yet, and the casters' tendency to turn in the frame.
The manual says to lubricate the bar sans pawl interface and roller races with grease, and lubricate the swivel bearings and mechanism with 30 weight oil every so often. Since the one set came pre-abused, I got to give this a go after cleaning off all the dirty grease and grit, and it was straight forward and simple.
In use, I was pleasantly surprised. The vehicle being moved is big and heavy. The garage floor has very wide shallow expansion joints, and has all manner of ridiculous slope in all the wrong directions and in weird places, but the concrete itself is generally smooth. Lifting the truck on the jacks was easy, and required very little effort save the final few strokes as previously mentioned. These last strokes were not difficult by any means, just required more effort than the previous strokes owing to the fact that they were lifting the truck versus simply compressing the tires. The second all four wheels were off the ground by a cm or so, the truck immediately rolled backward an inch or so due to a combination of an apparent rearward slope and the ease at which the dollies permit movement. It was a fair amount of effort to actually move the truck where I needed it owing to the mass of the truck, the slope, the soles of my shop shoes being worn completely smooth, and the grit on the concrete just outside from where I was required to push, but I was able to move the beast where I needed it. This was done solo, with nominal effort, and quickly. Success!
I had some concerns over the expansion joints and casters being a major problem, but they skipped right over them as if they weren't there. The was a noise, and a brief impulse of increased resistance (like a click more than a push), but they were not phased at all. In fact, while I was assembling the units, I had one assembled and sitting next to one I was assembling. Gravity and the slope of the garage were enough to get it moving on its own without intervention, and even at that very slow speed, the unit skipped right over the excessively wide expansion joints without hesitation.
I did notice that the outer part of the frame removed the paint from the inner part of the frame where they scraped past each other under load, but this seems like expected wear; the grease should prevent any excessive corrosion. I might see about filing down the inlet of the outer frame there just to reduce long term wear, but in a similar manner to the roller races, I doubt it'll prove a liability given its expected use case.
All in all, I'm very pleased with the GoJak dollies. Quality is good, and they get the job done easily and well. For smaller vehicles, maybe one of the lower priced alternatives would suffice. I've seen the HF equivalents (and it looks like a lot of the similarly priced models are the same manufacturer), and I've not seen the same duty GoJaks, so it's not exactly apples to apples, but the difference in quality is definitely worth the extra money. It's absolutely a case of "spend the money, cry once", "is it cheap at twice the price", and all those other "quit wasting time and money, and just buy the right tool for the job" sayings. Very high quality units that do the job very well.