Poverty / Ghetto Car Ramp ideas?

[armalites]

cheap and ramp are two words that dont belong together ,,, unless its
dont buy cheap ramps.

Having a 4 post and a 2 post at home I don't agree with this at all unless your idea of cheap is different to mine or I've misunderstood your point

My 4 post is ex post office workshop Laycock HSL wide, parts are still available even though it's probably 40 years old. I paid £300
for it.
My 2 post is a 4T Werther, it's hydraulic so no issues with lift nuts. New seals for both rams cost me less than £20 for both. I paid £450 for it.

They are both 3ph units but I run then both from an IMO motor drive. I even have different settings for each lift.

 

[Erie Fred]

That sort of idea was what I thought my old silage pit might be good for.
There's a flat (ish) run to the topside, and I can't recall, but perhaps a 1.5 metre 9-inch block wall and sides for the pit. If you had ramps/runners off the back wall, and suitable supports at the open end... you'd have a drive on/off pit about 5 metres wide by maybe 8 metres long

 

[Erie Fred]

 

[Dapph2]

Several scaffold boards and a stack of pallets on either side set the boards as supported ramps and put some on the pallet tops as the track path then carefully reverse to car up .
Beofe you reverse up use several ratchet straps to tie the pallets & boards together , then once up chock the wheels back and front on all wheels .

 

[gaz1]

The see-saw ones concern me somewhat... esp with a big, long, high vehicle like my Master Camper.
I can envisage very unpleasant outcomes.
I think if you had the two ramps clamped together fore/aft with scaffold pipes or similar it would be more stable (less unstable?) But they wouldn't be my first choice.
I think if I were to go down that route, I'd go for multiple link-together sections (so drive on via ramps, then be able to remove centre sections for better access, & easier to move/stack/store).
I think a member on here once posted a system like that, & I thought it was a neat solution.

as soon as you go near a screw lift it becomes expensive thats why alot of 4 post lifts use steel wire and pulleys

do i like the above video no

hammer 4 post lift uses high jacks


do i like the high jacks no but there also over 100.00 per jack for them

can you change the hammer lift to a hydraulic lift yes

 

[Ton-up]

A mate of mine bought one of those one sided mobile car lifts. He loves it as he can push it out of the way when not using it. Something like this -

 

[GRW]

A mate of mine bought one of those one sided mobile car lifts. He loves it as he can push it out of the way when not using it. Something like this -

View attachment 493804

I have an aversion (rightly or wrongly) to 2 poster (or indeed single poster) lifts. Plus atm I've nowhere with a good enough smooth flat concrete floor to use one.
Despite the advantages of wheel & suspension access - I don't like lifting vehicles by the body if I can help it, and 4-posters just provide more confidence, where a car on a 2-poster just looks.... unsafe.

 

[DanZac]

I don't see any reason why you couldn't convert a hydraulic 4 poster to manual hand pump if power etc is the big stopper for occasional use (or even 12v power pack operation like on a tail lift?).

Its only a hydraulic pump filling a ram to provide the lifting, so it would be simple enough to replace the electrical pump with an alternative, once you know the ram size etc, you can spec a pump to suit.

Flowfit Single Acting Hydraulic 12cc Hand Pump Assembly

Single Acting Hydraulic 12cc Hand Pump Assembly, With 1 Litre Tank, Relief Valve and Handlever. Check out Flowfit's high quality range of Hand Pumps!

www.flowfitonline.com

 

[GRW]

I don't see any reason why you couldn't convert a hydraulic 4 poster to manual hand pump if power etc is the big stopper for occasional use (or even 12v power pack operation like on a tail lift?).

Its only a hydraulic pump filling a ram to provide the lifting, so it would be simple enough to replace the electrical pump with an alternative, once you know the ram size etc, you can spec a pump to suit.

Flowfit Single Acting Hydraulic 12cc Hand Pump Assembly

Single Acting Hydraulic 12cc Hand Pump Assembly, With 1 Litre Tank, Relief Valve and Handlever. Check out Flowfit's high quality range of Hand Pumps!

www.flowfitonline.com

That's a good idea to bear in mind!
(I know little about Car Lifts tbh - I know there are screw-type, cable type & hydraulic types..... but I think the ones you see being sold most used, are cable type)

 

[sako243]

Cable are still usually hydraulic. At least my Bradbury is. A single hydraulic ram and then pulleys and cables to the other 3 posts. Easier to synchronise them and probably far cheaper to build.

 

[DanZac]

That's a good idea to bear in mind!
(I know little about Car Lifts tbh - I know there are screw-type, cable type & hydraulic types..... but I think the ones you see being sold most used, are cable type)

You don't see many small screw type 4 posters, and it would be difficult to convert to manual operation as the motor normally turns the screw directly (the other screws are chain driven from one point).

The more common type has a single hydraulic ram, either operating one leg, or hung under the table, with the other legs cable (wire rope) driven via a series of sheaves.

All the pump does is extend the ram, so provided any pump has sufficient pressure and can provide enough flow to extend the ram in an acceptable time frame, it doesn't matter how you provide that hydraulic pressure.

 

[RWD3M]

...All the pump does is extend the ram, ....

Though weirdly, on my ramp, it retracts the ram!

 

[DanZac]

Though weirdly, on my ramp, it retracts the ram!

Which makes sense (I assume the ram is under the table). Retracting the ram would shorten the ropes, lifting the table, and the retracted ram would be less prone to deflection.

Having looked at loads for 6 monthly lifting inspections, you see both permutations, depending on how the lifting ropes are routed. Either way, your applying hydraulic force to lift the table and returning it under gravity, controlling descent speed by restricting the flow of returning fluid.

 

[gaz1]

Cable are still usually hydraulic. At least my Bradbury is. A single hydraulic ram and then pulleys and cables to the other 3 posts. Easier to synchronise them and probably far cheaper to build.

are they within the post itself as the ones ive been near its just pulleys and cables under the ramps

this vid gives a real good preview of the build and also ram under one of the ramps

 

[gaz1]

there is a video of the hammer 4 post lift

the posted info is here

A four-post lift

I have always fancied a lift to work on my car. When we bought our house the first thing I wanted to check with the estate agent was the garage and its height. I got used to holding my arm straight…

mgtf1500.wordpress.com

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

I've got a set of hydraulic ramps with mechanical interlock. I think they were originally from CJautos.

I'm pretty sure if you hunt around you'd be able to pick up a used set maybe for half price...or even less if the left hand ramp has a slight leak and needs looking at!!!!

Used mine to like my xc70...2 wheels at a time...it's a lot of car!

 

[jmp49]

are they within the post itself as the ones ive been near its just pulleys and cables under the ramps

this vid gives a real good preview of the build and also ram under one of the ramps

FOG for one have a hydraulic ram under the fixed runway, with cables routed via sheeves as DanZac describes.
On mine the pump itself is bolted to one of the uprights and has hoses down to the ram bit with the valve on the side of that upright column.
There's also a anti fall parachute mechanism that grabs the cables if the ramp descends too quick (ie a hydraulic failure), but which I can trigger if I open the down valve too wide, also hooks fit into oblong slots on each column as you lift, so if it breaks it should only fall to the next slot anyway, unless your coming down, in which case a lever pulls the pawl that engages in the slots out of the zone where it touches the column on each corner.

For a diy ramp, I'd make some of those sloped drive on things at the side of a driveway as earlier in the thread, theyre dotted all over eastern europe too. If you must have something that lifts, 4 posts are cheap and come apart into normal person handleable lumps and have less floor strength requirements if you have the headspace. Mines big enough to fit a lwb sprinter on, and when I bought it, I collected it in the sprinter although I had to take the passenger seats out to fit the runways in. We just lifted all the lumps in with one person on each bit except the runway with the hydraulic ram, as that does weigh a decent amount and took 4 of us. The seller had it set up outside his building on a concrete pad where it had lived with a bucket made from half a plastic oil drum over the pump for years. So if you dont have the headspace INSIDE, it could be a option to have it outside.

I have a 2 post too, but its lying on its side taking up space in the barn. I'm not sure why I bought it now I'm using the 4 post, it came up cheap and I snagged it because I had some vague idea of setting it up at the side outside to just do quick stuff on and everyone was going on how much better they were, but having used a friends 2 post since I'd swap it for 4 post with a runway mounted rolling jack without thinking...
I keep thinking about putting a mezzanine made of IPN's up above the last 1/3rd where the cnc machining center lives, and using it as the platform lift.

 

[W.olly]

@W.olly came up with a good solution. Hang on, I'll find a link to it.

Ah 'the death trap' thought by some on here haha.
Did you ding the link.
It worked a treat.

 

[indy4x]

I have been formulating a plan, I have a pit in the garage at home but need something at my lockup.

There is no power there and following my relatively recent encounters with the local planning department putting a 2 or 4 post lift at the rear of the plot is not an option, at least in the foreseeable future

Been thinking about using a couple of RSJs or channel to make a ramp that I could drop down to ground level for the odd job I need to do under the camper van as it doesn't fit in my garage

 

[gaz1]

I have been formulating a plan, I have a pit in the garage at home but need something at my lockup.

block either side for the walls and then just use wood so it covers the hole

yours is deeper than mine as its 1ft deep but it does come in handy as mine has a land drains so remains dry