Got Wood?

In the previous post you would have seen my attempt at refurbishing the car ramps that I inherited. While initially this was a success, it seems the rust-stopping paint didn't really stop anything from rusting and the rust returned flaking off a fair amount of the paint.  They are still as robust as ever, but cosmetically look a bit naff.

I was intending to re-do the process however it seems the ramps are less useful these days.  I recently acquired a '93 Mitsubishi GTO Twin Turbo.  This car, it seems, is a fair bit lower than the previous GTOs I have owned and thus cannot actually get onto these ramps anyway.  Given that the Smart Roadster also had issues with them, a better solution was in order, and to solve the problem I decided to build my own low profile ramp set.

I had a couple of points I wanted to consider:

• Needs to be easy to store
• Needs to be low enough for the GTO and Roaster to mount without fouling body kits etc.
• Needs to be modular, so unneeded parts can be removed when not needed for better access.
• Needs to be strong enough to take the weight of the GTO.
• Ideally needs to be able to lift the whole car, and not just one end.

So to solve all of the above issues, I decided to just build up layers of wood like this:

Each layer is 4.5cm thick 19cm wide.  Each step is 25cm deep.  I purchased two 3.6m lengths of timber for just over £35. I then cut them down in the right sizes, affixing each layer together with at least 4 heavy duty 7cm wood screws. This gave me 4 of the "2 block" modules, and 2 of the "4 block" expansion modules.

Once complete the ramps stack together like this:

As you can see this will take up very little space in the shed, and also wont rust. :D  The modular design also means they can be stored in smaller spaces to make the best use of space.

Once deployed they look like this

If I want to raise the whole car up by 9cm I use just put the 4 x 2-block modules under each wheel.  If I want to raise one end or side of the car up 18cm I can drive up onto the 2-block modules and then push in the 4 block modules so that I can keep going up.  It has to be done in stages due to the insanely low clearance under both the GTO and the Roadster.

All in all took about 3 hrs to plan and complete (including shopping time).  I'm reasonably happy with the result.

There's also no reason I cant do a 6, or even 8, block module to go on the end, but this will need some side supports as it would raise car quite high.  Also need to consider the "run up" needed for such a large number of steps.  at 25cm per step that means for the 8 step version the car needs to start 2m away from where you ultimately want it to be sat to work on it.