Shipping Engines and Larger Parts

Does anyone have any helpful tips for ways to ship larger parts across the country at relatively reasonable prices?

As I look into the feasibility of parting out my GL, I can see that some of the valuable parts are things like transfer case, transmission, and the rear hatch which won't exactly fit into a flat rate box.  I have no problem getting pallets and/or building a crate and taking it to my local...  where ever, but when I start looking around at the freight portion of the UPS website they start asking about freight class and things seem to get awfully expensive awfully quick - I think I came up with about $260 to ship a 20 pound roof-top A/C shroud which seems kind of crazy-town to me.

Any good tips for where to look for that sort of service and how to get a realistic estimate?

Greyhound Package Express and Fastenal

I used ForwardAir years ago, but don't know what it is like to use them now.

Look for "dock-to-dock" shipping from a freight company, if using a pallet or home built large box. 

You have to get it to the dock, and they have to pick it up at their closest dock, but it's WAY cheaper than paying the company to have a guy come door-to-door for it.

Fastenal will ship stuff. AmTrak will ship freight too.

I've never used either, though.

I'm also interested in any info here!

Fastenal won't ship body parts. Greyhound does a good job for cheap especially if the buyer is willing to pick up at the Greyhound station. They do not insure body parts given the high risk of claims, so you're on your own for coverage but I have shipped a few bumpers with them and had great results. A hatch *might* be too big - they have size limits - a quick search shows it as 82" x 47" x 24" so that might rule it out for a hatch. Things like bumper covers, though, they're gold FedEx and UPS want a couple hundred bucks whereas Greyhound ranges from $30 - $100. Make sure to do your shipping stuff online and just drop off at the terminal - having them handle the shipment paperwork and payment at the terminal costs a bunch more. shipgpx.com is the site.

A transmission might just ship FedEx ground. The transmission for my MR2 Spyder was 85 pounds and shipped in a regular cardboard box, ground, and survived just fine. I bet a transfer case would fit too. Boxes like a double wall 20" cube or 24" cube will fit a lot more than you might think.

Note that, for sales on eBay, using the eBay shipping tool gives you a hefty discount, bigger than any I've managed to get on my carrier accounts. But it doesn't work for freight.

For actual freight companies, I haven't done any shipping in a few years but had great luck with Pilot Air Freight. Prices were good, service was decent. I found out about them through freightquote.com and then cut out the middle man and opened a direct account with Pilot and saved a bunch of money versus using freightquote.

Nice thing with Greyhound is they are not as worried about size as UPS and FedEx,  

Bad thing is not many Greyhound depots around , closest is 15-20 miles from my house.....

Fastenal is a solid option to look into. I shipped an engine, transmission, and some other parts, all secured to one large pallet, from south-central Indiana to Atlanta GA for ~$200. You send in the dimension and weight through their website and let them know where it will come from and go to, they send a quote back with a price. After that I loaded the pallet into my truck and took it to my Fastenal, they unloaded it with their forklift, and it was sent off. They were able to do the same thing on the receiving end.

For the price and ease of moving heavy parts once on sight it's hard to beat.

I shipped two motorcycle engines (about 170 lbs) using a mini crate and fedex ground. One of em was from Cali to Chicago, about $200. One was from Florida to Chicago. About $115 I think. 

I stopped using anyone other than FedEx when I parted out the first Fiat. USPS and UPS are just out to bait and switch you between what the website says and what you end up paying. Couldn't get an accurate quote to save my life on those two.