Redneck Pinball Dolly

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Click image for a brief YouTube video of the dolly's operation.

The picture and video above show my Redneck Pinball Dolly version 2.0. As of 2023 this represents 15 years of sporadic tinkering. Since this was an iterative process, I've left all the information regarding my previous versions below. Version 2.0 details are toward the bottom of the page.

This project began with an inexpensive motorcycle/ATV lift from Sears. This lift makes a good starting point for a pinball dolly because it has plenty of capacity, plenty of vertical travel and is inexpensive. The lift typically costs around $90. I got mine on sale for $60 (that was back in 2007). Commercial pinball dollies, by comparison, can cost several hundred dollars. The lift's only disadvantage is that it's not tall enough to reach the bottom of a pinball cabinet. Some modifications are in order...

DISCLAIMER: But first, a quote from the Sears owner's manual, "DO NOT make any altercations to this product". I am not a mechanical engineer. I built this dolly based on what "looked right" to me. Who knows if it's safe? If you're dumb enough to replicate my example, you're on your own.

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The starting point for this project was a Sears motorcycle/ATV lift.

Redneck Pinball Dolly version 1.0

The Sears lift comes with four 3" steel wheels. I replaced the steel wheels with a pair of 4" and a pair of 5" rubber wheels from a Tractor Supply Company store. The wheels feature large hubs, ball-bearings and roll real nice. Each is rated for 350 lbs. This modification is not necessary, but does offer several advantages. The larger wheels roll easier over any rough or uneven surfaces and the rubber is less destructive to gameroom floors. The four wheels cost about $50. This was the second most expensive purchase next to the lift itself. Everything else that went into this project was just nickel and dime items of lumber and hardware.

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Rubber wheels from Tractor Supply Co.

Shown below are the fixed 5" wheels. I made new axles out of modified carriage bolts. This wheel modification required some careful consideration. Since the wheels are larger than the originals, they need to be mounted outside the lift frame. But with the new wheels in place, the lift is so wide that it just barely fits between the front legs of a standard, modern pinball machine. I selected wheels that were thin, but still offered adequate carrying capacity.

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Fixed 5" wheels.

The 4" swivel wheels (with brakes) are bolted in place with two new mounting holes. Even though these 4" wheels are smaller than the 5" fixed wheels, this end of the lift is a little higher because of the mounting arrangement.

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4" swivel wheels.

Next I made a 12" by 28" extension frame from 2x10 lumber. The picture shows how I ripped a shallow wedge off each side of the frame. This is because the bottom of a pinball machine cabinet tends not to be exactly parallel to the floor. The angle of the cut is about ½" per foot. The cut is somewhat arbitrary since no two pinball setups are alike. I also rounded the back corners to accommodate the tilt bed described below. The radius of the corners is 1¾". After assembling my extension frame I temporarily removed the lift platform and secured it to my extension frame with eight lag screws.

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Extension frame side piece.

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Tearing the rubber pads off the Sears lift platform revealed convenient pre-drilled mounting holes.

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I mounted my extension frame to the lift platform with eight lag screws.

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Reassembled lift with extension frame.

At this point the dolly is ready to move pinball machines. But I also wanted to add a tilt-bed for tilting machines between their up-right and on-end positions. The tilt-bed is a 15" by 54" frame of 2x4s. The back of the bed has a 2" aluminum angle piece that acts something like a hand truck when the bed is in the vertical position. Note that the angle piece is recessed into the frame. The frame has a ½" plywood top. The plywood does not extend to the ends of the bed. This accounts for the lip around the bottom edge of the pinball machine. I also added a handle to the front of the bed.

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Tilt-bed with a 2" aluminum angle piece.

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Finished tilt-bed.

The tilt-bed is pinned to the extension frame with a ½" aluminum rod and cotter pins. The pivot point is 15¾" from the back of the bed. This is another arbitrary measurement I picked because it "looked right".

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Tilt-bed is pinned to the extension frame.

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Here's another view of the rod with the bed in the vertical position.

The finished dolly is shown below. As can be seen, the red T-handle that comes with the lift is not of much use. Not only does it interfere with the dolly modifications, it limits how far the dolly can be pushed under a pinball machine. The handle is easily removed with the pull of a pin. The dolly is easy to roll around just by gently pushing and pulling on the pinball machine itself.

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Finished dolly before the T-handle was scrapped.

To set up a machine I first raise the tilt-bed to its vertical position and adjust the height of the lift such that the back of the tilt-bed is resting on the floor. Next I position the bed beside the bottom of the machine just like a hand truck. I secure the front of the machine to the front of the tilt-bed with a ratchet strap (The Sears lift includes a pair of ratchet straps). I put one foot on the front of the dolly, grab the tilt-bed handle, pull toward me and pivot the machine to its horizontal position. Next the machine is jacked up and the legs are leisurely installed without any backbreaking acrobatics. Lastly, the machine is set up and rolled into position.

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Machine strapped to the tilt-bed.

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Machine pivoted to its horizontal position.

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Legs leisurely installed.

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Set up and rolled into position.

I'm not the first person to turn a motorcycle/ATV lift into a pinball dolly. Check around the Internet for more ideas. PB Lifter offered a similar prebuilt solution, but I believe they're no longer produced.

Redneck Pinball Dolly version 1.1

2009

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My original intent was to use the dolly only to move pins around the smooth concrete floor of my basement gameroom. Then I began to think that the dolly could be more versatile. With a few modifications I could use the dolly to move pins in and out of the basement as well as in and out of my Pinball Hauler cargo trailer. Mostly what I needed was more ground clearance to get over door thresholds and other obstacles. The modifications are outlined below.

To raise the rear of the dolly I made new wheel brackets from 3⁄16" by 2" angle steel. I used a second piece of 3⁄16" steel and a pair of bolts to clamp each wheel bracket to the lift frame.

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New wheel brackets.

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Rear wheels reinstalled.

Raising the front was easy. I just shimmed up the frame with some wood blocks and longer bolts.

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Front wheel shim.

I'll need to lift the front wheels over obstacles (as opposed to lifting the tilt-bed). So I added a sash lock to each side of the dolly to lock the tilt-bed down to the extension frame.

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Sash lock.

I drilled some holes in the lift platform to accommodate a tie-down strap. When transporting a game the head goes down, but the game remains horizontal and the legs stay on.

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Tie-down hole.

I also got the idea that the tilt-bed would work better if the pivot point was closer to the back of the bed. I have more tilt leverage with this modification. And I also have better front to back balance when the bed is horizontal. Here's what I did...

The lift originally came with this ratchet thingie that's supposed to prevent the lift from accidentally lowering. I never used it. And it was in the way, so it got scrapped. Next I cut a notch in my extension frame to fit over the hydraulic cylinder. This allows the lift to get down a little closer to the floor. Then I drilled for a new pivot point and repositioned the bed. Now the pivot point is 14½" from the back of the bed.

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Ratchet thingie removed and scrapped.

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Extension frame notched to fit over the hydraulic cylinder.

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New pivot point.

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Strapped down and ready to go.

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Out the door, up the ramp and into the trailer. It doesn't get any easier.

The rubber tread on my wheels is a bit too soft for outdoor use. The rubber picks up a lot of pebbles and grit that need to be scraped off before coming back inside. The tread is beginning to look like Swiss cheese. It's probably okay for my limited use. But, if I had to do this again I might look for rubber wheels better suited for outdoor use.

Redneck Pinball Dolly version 1.2

2017

The tilt function on my Redneck Pinball Dolly never worked as eloquently as I had imagined. The problem was that the tilt-bed's pivot point was behind the rear wheels of the dolly. The dolly was stable in both the vertical and horizontal positions. But when tilting in between, the weight of the game tended to lift the front wheels of the dolly. This required me to tilt the game while simultaneously keeping a foot on the front of the dolly. That was awkward. What I needed to do was move the pivot point from behind the rear wheels to at least in front of the rear wheel axles. In retrospect this seems really obvious. I'm not sure why it took years for me to figure out a solution. Actually this didn't turn out to be that great of a solution. Read on...

First I cut about 2" off the back of the extension frame to bring the tilt-bed closer to the rear wheels. So the outside dimensions of the frame are now more like 12" by 26". If I had to do this again, I'd use straight 2x10 lumber without ripping a wedge off the bottom as noted toward the top of the page. The slope is insignificant. Construction would have been easier if everything had been kept square. Fortunately I didn't use any adhesive when I originally built this thing. It's all easy to take apart and modify.

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Shortened extension frame side.

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Tilt-bed position before and after cutting the extension frame.

Next I drilled a new pivot hole 6" from the back and 6" from the top with a corresponding 6" radius cut around the top rear corner. This places the pivot point slightly in front of the rear wheel axles.

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New pivot hole in the extension frame.

The tilt-bed required extension brackets to reach the new pivot point. I make these from 8" squares of plywood. I used thin plywood to minimize the amount of wood I had to hog out from the inside of each of the tilt-bed's side frames. I laminated another 4" square of thicker plywood to each bracket to increase its bearing surface.

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An extension bracket recessed into the inside edge of a side frame.

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An extra lamination of plywood increases the bracket's bearing surface around the pivot pin.

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A top view of the new pivot arrangement.

I also recut and repositioned the extension frame's cross members. Now they're smaller and don't interfere with anything else like the hydraulic cylinder.

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Cross member arrangement.

These modifications moved the tilt-bed forward on the extension frame by about 11". I had to reposition the hooks for the sash locks. I also abandoned my old tie-down holes and added a new tie-down ring on each side of the extension frame.

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Sash lock and tie-down ring.

Moving the tilt bed forward better balances the game over the dolly. But it makes the jack pedal controls even more inaccessible. First I'll note that I always operate the jack with my hands, not my feet. I'm usually on my knees as I'm moving the dolly and/or game into its final position so it makes sense to use my hands. Plus I have more control over the movement of the jack with my hands. So my goal was to make handle extensions, not pedal extensions. The jack pedal was basically just a pipe bolted into a socket. That was easy to replace with a 7⁄8" dowel. As for the release pedal, I removed the pedal, drilled some mounting holes, added another length of dowel and reinstalled the pedal. The dowels shown here are pine which was probably good enough. But I eventually replaced the jack handle with oak.

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The jack pedal controls are difficult to reach.

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Dowel extensions.

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Dowel extensions.

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The game is better balanced over the dolly with the tilt-bed moved forward on the extension frame.

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Balancing a game on the new pivot. All four wheels stay on the floor.

An aspect of the tilt-bed that I never liked is that the game becomes more difficult to control the closer it is to vertical. There just isn't much leverage. My latest version 1.2 modifications actually made things a bit worse in this regard. It's pretty obvious why the PB Lifter/Tilter product came with a winch. But after some playing around I figured out a technique that makes it work. I put my left foot against the rear wheel with my heel on the floor. For balance, I put my right knee on the front wheel bracket. I grab the top of the tilt bed (not the handle) with my left hand. Again for balance, I grab the jack frame with my right hand. In this way I'm using my left leg muscles to do most of the work and I can gently move the game to and from vertical. In any event, my Portable Pinball Lift turned out to be a way easier tool for rotating a game. In fact the Portable Pinball Lift is so easy to use that I may never again use the tilt function of my Redneck Pinball Dolly.

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A new technique.

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Smokey rides the Redneck Pinball Dolly.

Redneck Pinball Dolly version 2.0

2023

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Click image for a brief YouTube video of the dolly's operation (same video as at the top of the page).

As pointed out above, I was never that happy with the pivot function of my Redneck Pinball Dolly. On the other hand, I really liked the rotational ease of my Portable Pinball Lift. Why not combine the two concepts? The Redneck Pinball Dolly version 2.0 is the encompassing solution that I'm finally happy with. To get the gist of what this is all about, you might want to review my Portable Pinball Lift page.

I should initially note that my pinball collection is primarily system 11. And I'm not going to tear down every game I own in the interest of testing. So it's difficult to judge the universal effectiveness of this contraption. As always, if you're dumb enough to replicate my example, you're on your own.

Starting from scratch, I built a new tilt-bed which is an assembly separate from the dolly with no fixed pivot connection. I'll use the word "cam" to describe the parts that vertically elevate the rear of the game. Unlike the Portable Pinball Lift, I cut the cams as quarter quasi-ellipses instead of quarter circles. The cams are 16" tall and 14" deep with a (more or less) 14" radius and made from ¾" plywood.

I think there's a physics justification for this. The further the game is rotated toward horizontal, the more the game wants to pull itself toward horizontal. So instead of elevating the rear of the game in a linear manner, it makes more sense to do most of the elevating as the game approaches horizontal because the game's center of gravity does most of the work.

But in a more pragmatic sense, I wanted to get the dolly as far under the game as possible. The quasi-ellipse gives me 16" of elevation, but it's 14" depth doesn't much interfere with the dolly.

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Quarter quasi-ellipse cam.

The tilt-bed frame is 52" by 13½". This time I used 1x4 lumber except for the rear chunk of 2x4 that supports the 2" aluminum angle.

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Tilt-bed frame.

The top of the tilt bed is a 48" by 15" piece of ½" plywood.

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Plywood top.

To the underside of the tilt-bed I added a rear 1x4 stop block (red arrow). This is what the dolly bumps into as it's pushed under the tilt-bed. I added a smaller front stop block (green arrow), which may be unnecessary. When the game is on the dolly it's all pretty much held together by gravity.

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Underside of the tilt-bed.

I added a pair of handholds to the front (top) of the tilt-bed to aid in maneuvering the tilt-bed into position against the bottom of a game on end. These are only to position the tilt-bed. The game is rotated by grabbing the game itself (see video).

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Update: I cut down the front 1x4 part of the tilt-bed frame because it was visually in the way. I want to be able to sight down the middle of the tilt-bed frame when rolling the dolly and extension frame under the tilt-bed. This whole front piece could probably just be deleted.

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Front frame cut away.

Once again I cut down my extension frame. Now it's 22½" by 12" and is 7½" tall. I gave up on trying to figure an appropriate slope. I cut the frame straight and then experimented with various rear shim blocks (red arrow). This is somewhat arbitrary since every game is different. It also depends on how far out you run your rear leg levelers. I keep my levelers low for an easy shallow playfield slope. For me a ½" shim block worked as a happy middle ground for keeping my various games on a more or less even keel when lifting all four legs off the floor. Note that the rear of the extension frame is more or less over the rear wheel axles. This prevents the front dolly wheels from lifting when the rear of the dolly initially takes most the game's weight.

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Extension frame.

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Extension frame with rear shim block.

Although not readily visible in the pictures, I used a beveled router bit to add a slight bevel to the bottom inside edges of the tilt bed frame and the upper outer edges of the extension frame. This makes it easier to roll the dolly under the tilt bed. And once the edges are aligned, the dolly self-guides itself to the stop block.

I wanted to get the dolly as far under the game as I could. In retrospect, I should have moved my rear stop block an inch or so further forward. As it is I had to makes some retroactive clearance modifications. The dolly had some rear tie down eyes I never used. So I cut them away. I also trimmed a shallow wedge off the bottom front edge of my cams.

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Dolly rear tie down eye.

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Gone.

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Cam trimmed to clear the dolly.

Lastly I reinstalled my sash locks and tie-down rings.

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Sash lock and tie-down ring.