Car ramps

[MuddyMike]

I agree with that. The only problem with steel ramps is that they tend to slip away when you are trying to drive the vehicle up onto them. Some sort of anchor point in the workshop floor/drive helps stop that. Most of my vehicle work is on my Land Rover and even with its big wheels it needs the dif locked to climb the ramps. I often work with one end on ramps the other on a pair of ex MOD axle stands, and even do so diagonally when I needed to be able to rotate both a front and rear wheel, to grease prop shafts and UJs for instance.

Mike

[Adrian]

"MuddyMike" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Just put a loop of old carpet or similar around the bottom rung, so you drive onto that first. Then, the car's weight can't push the ramp away, since you're "treading on it's tail".

The bigger problem is the risk of side-to-side instability of the ramps as you jack the rear up.

[Harry Bloomfield]

A strip of carpet or similar folded in two to loop over the bottom rung and then along the ground stops them sliding away. My ramps are too steep for my low front skirt, so I use a short bit of plank at a shallow angle, fitted with a bit of angle to hook onto ramp - that also helps prevent them sliding away.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Adrian presented the following explanation :

That is where the steel ramps ability to slide across the concrete is useful - they tend to slide and follow the sideways movement of the wheel.

[MuddyMike]

I like that idea, will save this post.

Mike

[Andy Champ]

Matty,

I don't know what car you've got, but it might not even go up ramps. My last car was a Nissan Primera - ordinary family hatchback - and the wind dam was low enough, and far forward enough, that it hit the ramps before the wheels. I stuck with axle stands and a jack.

Andy

[Matty F]

I just checked - it won't go up the steel ramps thatI have. The ramps are 20cm high and the car in front of the wheels is 14 cm high.

small car goes up the ramps OK but the ramp damaged the car once.

It's out with the 3 ton jack and the axle stands!

[Huge]

Blimey, you can buy a lift for that money.

Not sure how you'd arrange for 3-phase, though. Can you change the motors?

[Huge]

Gawd bless you, guvnor. Much easier than bolting the damn things down.

[Adrian]

Huge gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

And that's why three-phase ramps are so much cheaper than single.

'course, a motor conversion's probably cheaper and easier.

[Andy Dingley]

Not usually easy to do.

If it's a hydraulic lift, there's one motor and a swap to single phase is dead easy. However these are the larger lifts, so you're probably already going to have three phase.

The electric screw lifts (the most common) need two or four motors, each of which needs to have good starting torque. They also need to be quite small. It's hard to do this with a single phase motor - bare motors don't have the torque of a three-phase, geared motors cost (a lot) more and there may not be room to mount them. Two posts lifts are workable, but four posts lifts (which are less desirable commercialy, thus cheaper) can be awkward, as they have the size constraint problem, and there's twice as many motors.

The other way is to use a three phase inverter.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Ribbed rubber matting glued to the underside sorts that.

[The Other Mike]

As an alternative to the usual very bulky commercial lift, Machine Mart (actually Clarke) used to do a car sized version of a motorbike lift until a couple of years ago. Can't see it on their website now but archive.org has a copy.

drive over it, extend four arms out onto the jacking / lift points and lift it hydraulically (single phase electric pump) There is a fail safe ratchet mechanism such that hydraulic failure can't lower the vehicle.

It only takes the car floorpan up to about 1m off the ground and there is some metalwork under the centreline of the vehicle unlike a conventional lift where the lifting posts are outboard but its compact enough for most domestic garages, still gives really good access and is very stable.

While it can be moved about (it's been on a car trailer a few times) it is extremely heavy. I'd not consider one new but I got a great deal on a barely used secondhand one.

[Skipweasel]

Or a big winding handle.

Seriously, if you're not going to be using it more than once a month or so, just pay the lad to spend half an hour cranking it up.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Adrian was thinking very hard :

[Harry Bloomfield]

It would, with a bit of scaffold board hooked onto one of the lower rungs, which is the way I do it to clear my front skirt.

[Matty F]

There's a bit of a drop in front of my garage. I put some thick timber in the front of the garage and drove the front wheels on to it. That gave me enough room to get underneath and have a look at the current problem. There appears to be oil occasionally leaking from the gearbox area on to the exhaust pipe, where it attempts to catch fire. I will not attempt to fix that myself. It's back to the mechanic, who has already "fixed" a different oil leak. It's a Britsh car, they all leak don't they?

[Jules Richardson]

It's a design feature - you know when to put more oil in because there's no longer a puddle forming on your driveway. Saves having to open the bonnet and check via the dipstick.

Question for the masses: what's a good way of cleaning accumulated crud from an engine and surroundings? I wouldn't mind doing that to our Toyota so I can see where its various leaks are coming from, but it's got 200k miles worth of oil and dirt all over it so it's hard to tell where the leaks originate. Can't get Gunk around here - there's some spray-foam stuff sold which is reasonably effective (name eludes me right now) but only coats a small area, and I'd be there forever trying to do a whole engine bay. I have an air compressor... maybe I can rig up some kind of steam jet and try that...

cheers

Jules

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I get mine steam cleaned. London Taxis have to be for their annual check, so it's easy to get done round here. Last time it cost 15 quid to have the front - both engine compartment and underside - done. Well worth it IMHO.

[Huge]

Bit of a long trip for Jules... :o)