Before I turned out the lights for the night, I stood there and thought about this for a while (a slow process ).

So close. If I could just get that bench a "tiny" bit higher. Tried lifting up on the bench...zero play. So the only thing that would help would be making the stand lower. There is room under the pan. If this garage and the other were set up (not still being reconstructed), I could cut a 1/2" out of each leg, weld it back together, and life would be good. But that's not an option right now. So I started looking at the iron casters. Very beefy, but a full 4" tall. If I could find some that were just a fraction of an inch shorter, I'd have the room I needed.

A quick visit to the local Ace Hardware the next day produced these. Not much shorter, but I only need maybe an 1/8th inch to clear comfortably. 90lb. rating each, so 360 across the four of them, should be enough for the short-block. They will probably flat spot terribly over the coming years, but I'm not worried about that right now.




Smaller roller bearing area, and using flattened pins for an axle Vs. the bolt on design of the original. Not as strong and serviceable, but also quite a bit thinner. You can't see it in this photo of the new caster in front of the old, but the wheel itself is half the width, and the axle is much slimmer (you can see the bolt/axle of the original caster in the background behind the new caster).




The other issue I foresaw while at the hardware store...the new downsized casters have a mounting stud just as tall (which means they will have the same reach through the tube frame...that's a good thing), but smaller in diameter. This would allow the new casters to wallow around in that hole, and under load, get cocked sideways in the frame. So I walked one of the new casters over to the Ace bulk material center, and picked up a piece of aluminum tube that would just go around the outside of the stud.




Back in the shop, a test fit of that tube into the hole in the frame showed it to be just a touch too big around. A quick bit of work with a round file (one of the few files that got returned post-fire) removed the powder coat and opened up the hole just a touch. I only opened the upper hole. Leaving the hole in the bottom of the frame tube smaller will prevent the bushing from dropping out of the bottom of the frame.




Test fit = perfect.




Marked and cut to length to create a bushing for the caster stud.




Set it into place = perfect. Shown here only partially installed. It sits flush with the frame when fully installed.




A mixed bag on the amount of grease on the caster bearings from their factory. One had an OK amount, two barely any, and one appeared to have none. A trip to the back garage and the 25 gal. drum of '50s vintage Sinclair brand bearing grease (doesn't everyone one have one of those?) for a little scoop of product. Each caster bearing got packed.






Cleaned up and ready for action. Action in this case means rolling it about 8' and sitting for a decade.




As long as we're at it, a touch of grease for the new busing too. Installed and tightened. Now repeat 3 more times.