#hand carts

With all of the hand truck and convertible hand truck repairs we get here, we thought we would try to help you with your own repairs.  So, we came up with a quick checklist to help assess what repairs might be needed on your hand truck.  This is a general guide for convertible hand truck repairs and may not cover more specific areas where your hand truck may be broken.  Just be careful to pay attention to all the details though, and as always, you can CONTACT US for help.  Now for the checklist...

We have a typical convertible hand truck brought in by a customer.   First we just give it a quick look to see if anything obvious stands out like missing parts or obviously broken parts. Check the frame, handle, nose plate, and all other components for cracks or missing hardware.

This one did not show anything obvious, so we’ll move on to the detailed checks.

Start by releasing the swing arm at the latch assembly.  Although the latch assembly on this truck was obviously bent, it actually still worked as it should - releasing the swing arm when the lever was engaged by hand.  If yours does not release, or only releases on one side, you will need to replace the lock/latch assembly.

Once the swing arm is released, slide it up through the swivel tubes (one on each side of the frame) and pivot it so the swing arm is parallel to the floor.  If the swing arm does not slide easily through the swivel tubes and/or gets stuck, check it for bends or damage that might be preventing that.  If bent or damaged, consider replacing the swing arm.  If it is not bent or damaged, but still does not slide, the problem may be in lock bar and how it is pulling the ends of the swing arm together. Inspect the lock bar and how it attaches to the swing arm to confirm, then move on to the following step.

Push the lock bar into place on the crossover tube assembly as shown in the image below.  The bar should fit into the top groove of the crossover tube brackets, and the bolt/spacer should fit into the bottom groove.  If both do not fit snugly into their respective grooves, check the crossover tube brackets for significant wear or bent/broken pieces and evaluate whether or not the crossover tube assembly should be replaced.

Next, check the casters:  They should swivel and roll freely.  In this case, one of the casters was worn to the point that the swivel raceway lost all it’s ball bearings and did not swivel (image below).  Replace parts as needed.

Moving down the hand truck, check the handle and fastening hardware for broken or missing parts.  This one passed the test, so now we’ll move on to the wheels and nose plate.

One of the nose plate mounting brackets was cracked on this hand truck, so we replaced that.  Also inspect the wheel brackets that hold the axle to the frame for cracks or wear.  Replace as needed.

Finally, inspect the wheels.  They should spin freely and true without any wobble.  If they wobble, check the bearings and replace as needed.  In this case, the wheel was rubbing the wheel bracket (see image below).  This was caused by a bent wheel hub, so we replaced the entire wheel.