Quick Welding Trolley Mod

After years of use and abuse my mig welder had started to need repairing more and more often, I decided I would try one of these inverter welders that are becoming all the rage, I thought for a moment about making a trolley for it but discovered that they cost very little to buy.... so I bought one.

All of these trolleys appear to be to a common design, a pair of wheels at the back, a pair of castors on the front.

A day later the flat packed trolley arrived and I assembled it, the first time I tried to steer the assembled trolley into a tight space I knew it was going to annoy me! With the fixed wheels on the back it will not go where you want it to go easily. When I built the base for my old welder I fitted 4 castors and am very used to it going where I want it to go :)

Modification time!

A set of 4 castors with M12 stud fixing were ordered ( I went for slightly larger wheels hence 4 not 2 required)

A piece of 300mm x 5mm steel bar for the rear castors 65mm longer than width of the cart.

4 M8 x10 bolts ( or use the original m6 bolts)

4 M12 plain washers

4 M12 locking washers

The original wheels and castors were removed

The front castors are easy, just redrill the frontmost, outermost mounting holes for the original castors too 12mm diameter. Insert the castor stud and assemble with plain washer, spring washer and nut.

The rear castors got a bit more attention. I like them to be a bit wider under the gas bottle stand so they are mounted on the piece of 30mm x 5mm steel with 12mm holes drilled so that the washers will just miss the trolley frame, in my case it was width of trolley plus 32mm centres. The bar can be attached to the trolley by drilling through 4 holes 5mm diameter then tapped the holes in the bar M6 diamter to reuse the 6mm screws that held on the original castors.... I thought of that after drilling 6mm clearance holes in the bar and discovering the screws were to short to take nuts so my bar was redrilled and tapped for M8 diameter screws.

All done, the trolley now steers where ever I need it to go.

The front castors have brakes should I find myself welding on a slope.

It is a very easy mod and so worthwhile.