So I bought this flat-bed “trolley” cart as an impulse buy at Home Depot the other day thinking it would come in handy for off-loading the car after an outing at BJ’s or Costco, not to mention other moving projects I haven’t yet thought of or was faced with.  At $70 it looked to be a good buy and easy to put together … and there was only 1 left!!!

I get it home and start to put it together via the non-verbal Lego-like instructions, and everything seems pretty easy, but it seemed weird to me that the wheels (casters on stems) didn’t push all the way in and the tops of the casters weren’t flush with the bottom base of the cart.  The wheel casters were pushed in as hard as I could and seemed secure, but didn’t seem right.

I used it twice like this and it worked fine, but after the second load I looked more closely at the instructions and sure enough it seemed to indicate the wheels should be pushed in all the way, no stem from the caster showing (and photos online confirmed this).  And I could tell by the molding on the bottom that the rear wheels were suppose to lock in place if pushed all the way in.  So I tried pushing and pushing to no avail.  Tried to pound down on the wheels with a rubber mallet and with nail set and a hammer pounding on the caster base … and in all only worked up a nice sweat.

So I decided to cool off mentally and physically use the handy interwebs and see if anyone else had a similar issue and a trick to make this work.  I tried You Tube, Google, the Rubbermaid site, and out of desperation, Bing!, but all to no avail.  Eventually I went back to Home Depot site and sure enough, there was one review complaining of the same problem and how he used a 1×1 piece of wood angled on the caster base and a hammer to pound those stubborn wheels in place.  So back I headed to the basement to try and find something similar to use on my casters and when I happened upon my can of WD-40 … “why not?”

Sure enough, one squirt of WD-40 in each wheel’s hole, used my thumb to hold caster in place after an initial push down, a few knocks with my rubber mallet and they all slid in perfectly flush. Be aware that the two rear wheels lock in place, so line up before you start hammering.  I posted my WD-40 solution to the Home Depot site too hoping it helps someone too.  I love this kind of serendipity.

Kudos to the always handy WD-4o 😉

Find Rubbermaid Triple Trolley Model FG4401 at Home Depot ($69.97 – Sept. 2012)