Rock-A-Bye Chevy

Sure, you could sit that Detroit V8 you’re planning to rebuild on a wooden crate, but we can think of a number of great reasons to pick up this engine cradle from Summit Racing instead: 1) Moving a wood crate around the garage with a 500+ pound V8 on it sucks, 2) the cradle gives you open access to the engine’s underside, and 3) you’ll probably spend most of its $40 price tag on the wood crate anyway.

Summit’s cradle holds up to 1000 lbs. and is constructed from 14 gauge steel and heavy-duty rolling casters.  The model pictured is fitted out for Chevy blocks (small and big), but Summit sells variations for other manufacturers’ power plants, too.  All of ‘em are finished in black powdercoating so they’re easy to clean up. 

In fact, the only real drawback to the cradle over a full engine stand is that you can’t rotate the block like you can in the stand.  Then again, try storing two or three engines on stands; you’d better have a seriously big shop.

We’ve thought about building one of these for our next engine swap — we’ve got a bunch of 14 and 16 gauge 1″ square tube in the steel bin — but at $40 we’ll probably just buy one instead.

1000 lb. Enigne Cradle [Summit Racing]
Street Pricing [Froogle]
Via Amazon [What's This?]