Cost-effective shipping for heavy stuff?
 

I lucked into an opportunity to get some unobtanium parts for my Fiat, and some other parts that are NOS, for a great price. Two turbochargers with their cast-iron manifolds (not overly large but quite heavy), a NOS center console (large but not heavy), and some misc other parts smaller parts. I think the seller and I were both aware that shipping could be an issue.

What’s the most economical shipping method for stuff like this? UPS is going to run about $400, which I’d like to avoid if I can help it. LTL shipping occurred to me but it’s not in one box and I think this may be a bit small for that.

Parts are going from Lake Shasta, CA to Chicago and I’m in no hurry. But I do want to respect the seller’s time.

I've used the following to ship heavy stuff:

Old Dominion Freight Lines (LTL) - I've shipped transmissions and other heavy stuff in big coolers. I've also shipped stuff by crate or just several boxes strapped to a small pallet.

Fastenal - This is a nation-wide fastener and industrial hardware franchise. They used to ship heavy stuff between storefront locations; you might inquire if they're still doing that.

FedEx Freight - Ground freight up to 70 lbs isn't too expensive.

Pirate ship…

Strap to a pallet and go that route (would be cautious if not fully crated).

Airline ticket and oversized checked “luggage”.

If you can get it on a pallet, then any price goes down.

If you can drop and/or receive at a dock, then the price goes down more.

A pallet from dock to dock is the best option.

As silly as it seems, it's cheaper to have a truck sit there and wait for you to manually unload from truckbed level, than it would be for them to use the liftgate. Once they touch those controls, you're adding sometimes $100 on instantly.

I assumed dock to dock would be cheapest, but I don’t know how practical it is on the seller’s end. He’s closing down a shop but I do not have the impression that he has a dock. I don’t have a dock to receive it on, but could receive it at the shop at my work. Interesting re: using the liftgate. We don’t have a loading dock at work but I could probably get it unloaded with a lift truck, if not at my office’s shop then at one of our others. But it’s indeed funny to realize that I could just take the things off the back of the truck myself for less money than using the liftgate.

The airline option is amusing to think about. I have standby privileges on United so I could get myself to the seller’s shop for little money. Trying to schlep it home myself would be a riot and a half.

I suspect FedEx freight will be the best practical option. There is a Fastenal in Redding, so I’ll give them a call tomorrow to ask.

I once took Megabus from Houston to Baton Rouge, picked up about 50 pounds of telescope equipment, crammed it into an empty suitcase, bribed the driver $20 to ignore the weight, and bussed home, all in about 14 hours, and $60 including the bribe. The seller even bought me lunch. Sometimes it's fun to find ways to stick it to the system, because shipping is ABSURD.

I use shippo.com that gives you pricing for UPS, FedEx and USPS. I just shipped an '86 3.2 exhaust system to California. Removed the muffler, two bike boxes later, the heat exchangers and cat was $121 and the muffler was $83 through UPS. Both much bigger and heavier and traveled farther than your Fiat parts. Congrats on them BTW, I hope to have my '70 Spider running this spring.

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There was talk on the 356talk list about 20 years ago about being able to send things like engines and transmissions that were properly crated via GreyHound Bus....

Greyhound shipping is as healthy as Red Lobster

Greyhound quit doing that.

Have the seller box it up and strap it to a pallet, ship it LTL. Pick it up on the other end at the dock by pulling the boxes off the pallet and throwing the pallet away.

There are companies that will palletize things for you and LTL companies will pick pallets up for free if they do enough business with those companies.

Just gotta do a little legwork.

Thanks for those reference points, Shaun. My parts probably are about as heavy - a cast-iron exhaust manifold and complete turbocharger, times two. Add a center console, large but light. He was getting quoted $400 by UPS. My car’s turbo was rebuilt in ~1991, shortly after my dad and I got it, but it’s got a bit of shaft play so it’ll need attention eventually, and my manifold is a bit warped. Rebuilds aren’t really available any more because the shaft seals are unavailable and it’s not the same turbo as other versions of the RHB6. Send a pic of your Spider! I didn’t know you had a Spider but I just realized I recalled seeing your handle on one of the forums or FB groups.

I had my 911’s Recaros shipped to me via Greyhound, but as javadog says, they stopped doing that. It worked well for me when they did do it, though.

$250 is about the starting rate for a pallet. Make it as small a footprint as you can, the weight won't be enough to be a factor.

Might try FedEx freight and Forward Air.

Every three years we used to have to ship off our 500 pound $490,000 Wild RC30 aerial camera for cleaning and calibration. First to Canada for the only guy in North America that could service it, and to the USGS for the calibration.

We would strap it all down to a palette, and use FedEx freight. They would send a truck with a lift gate, and a pallet jack. It would coost us 20 grand just to ship it off and get the services done and return it. We put shock sensors on it and insured it for the full replacement value.

That camera is now a paperweight and just a cool item to look at and admire the engineering.

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That is the camera in the gimble mount in our Cessna 2006 that came from the factory with a 20 inch hole in the floor for the camera. The water bottle is for scale.

How many bananas big is that water bottle? :)

I've ordered these wood crates from Uline to ship heavy/fragile items. They ship to you flat, flip up sides and screw together and fill.

Just pick a size that will work for you...

https://www.uline.com/BL_427/Standard-Wood-Crates

Forward Air is a nationwide carrier who delivered multiple motors to me

The nice thing is your parts will be dim'ed by weight. The exchangers were priced by size of the box. It's much bigger than it is heavy. I would be surprised if your shipping was over $100 if packaged properly, and that's with 2 packages, one for the manifolds and the other for console.

Home Depot has great heavyweight boxes for the pair of manifolds.

It's no beauty but very little rust for a Northeast car, shock towers are good and I actually like the later hood. And instead of getting the 1438 going, I would love to find a good running 1600 to drop in. We'll see.

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Here's my manifold. Please post of pic of what you bought when you have a chance.

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Autoricambi started making repops of the turbo hoses last year (I got one NOS one from Richard Ridge along wth some turbo parts, and repops of the other two from AR) but everything else Turbo-specific has been NLA for decades. This one was rebuilt ages ago and had been sitting on a shelf.

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