In a perfect world you have a good plan.
Depending on the construction of the casters and the framework that they
are attached to, and the levelness of your floor, the actual numbers
might be close or might not be close. For instance if you have small
depressions in your floor and a set of 4 casters rolls over a
depression, you might have 3 of the 4 wheels, maybe even 2 of the 4
wheels, carrying all of the load for that corner of the car. Now if
your floor has large depressions, the entire set of casters rolls into
the depression which allows the spring on that wheel to extend. This
puts more load on the other front wheel of the car. So worst case you
could have most of the load of the front 2 wheels of the car on 2
casters. So basically you have to determine how much these factors
could influence your situation and apply whatever additional safety
factor you think is appropriate.
> My cars range in weight from less than a ton to over two tons. Assuming that
> 60% of the car's weight is in the front and the casters should be suitable
> for my heaviest vehicle - 4500lbs - then 4500*.60/8= 337.5lbs per front
> caster.
> Does this method of determining the weight capacity of the casters make sense
> to you guys or are there other things I should consider?
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