Technical DIY Car ramps

[Baggey]

I Think im going to make my own Ramps Here's a link to some nice ideas.

https://www.itsoverflowing.com/diy-car-ramps/

Now if your anything to do with health and saftey! Go and annoy someone else!

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I Think im going to make my own Ramps Here's a link to some nice ideas. Now if your anything to do with health and saftey! Go and annoy someone else!

Sorry Baggy, I don't see the link?

The easy answer is to attend a few autojumbles/boot sales and buy a used pair of ramps? One wee word of warning though, some have quite a steep run up slope. - I mean the ramped slope the wheel has to run up. If it's quite a steep one you may find the front bumper/panel of the car runs into the ramp before the wheel can run up the ramp. So I'd recommend you try them against the car before buying. I bought a couple of ramps many years ago which worked very well on my Ford Anglia, Cortina and many others of that age. As the years went by front wheel drive became popular and, because the front driveshafts are usually located behind the power unit, the front overhang got bigger. Also many modern cars have some type of air dam, or low front panel, to improve aerodynamics and this runs into many makes of ramp long before the wheel can rum up it. Mind you, if you find a really cheap pair or maybe get given a pair, you can always extend them as I did with mine. I roughly doubled the length of the run up but I'm lucky in that I have the facility to weld:

Here's the, rather rough but "strong enough", joining weld and the extra vertical brace I added:

I just used ordinary mild steel angle iron and my very basic MMA (stick) welder. Could have made it much neater if I'd broken out the MIG but I was out of shielding gas at the time.

A friend of mine made ramps out of old 4x4 fence posts glued and screwed together which were pretty robust but heavy and it took a lot of energy with a saw to cut them away for the ramped part.

Looking forward to seeing some of your ideas

 

[Baggey]

Sorry Baggy, I don't see the link?

The easy answer is to attend a few autojumbles/boot sales and buy a used pair of ramps? One wee word of warning though, some have quite a steep run up slope. - I mean the ramped slope the wheel has to run up. If it's quite a steep one you may find the front bumper/panel of the car runs into the ramp before the wheel can run up the ramp. So I'd recommend you try them against the car before buying. I bought a couple of ramps many years ago which worked very well on my Ford Anglia, Cortina and many others of that age. As the years went by front wheel drive became popular and, because the front driveshafts are usually located behind the power unit, the front overhang got bigger. Also many modern cars have some type of air dam, or low front panel, to improve aerodynamics and this runs into many makes of ramp long before the wheel can rum up it. Mind you, if you find a really cheap pair or maybe get given a pair, you can always extend them as I did with mine. I roughly doubled the length of the run up but I'm lucky in that I have the facility to weld:

View attachment 475733

Here's the, rather rough but "strong enough", joining weld and the extra vertical brace I added:

View attachment 475734

I just used ordinary mild steel angle iron and my very basic MMA (stick) welder. Could have made it much neater if I'd broken out the MIG but I was out of shielding gas at the time.

A friend of mine made ramps out of old 4x4 fence posts glued and screwed together which were pretty robust but heavy and it took a lot of energy with a saw to cut them away for the ramped part.

Looking forward to seeing some of your ideas

I love them ive got a mig. Didn't think of the car boot sale's though

 

[Baggey]

Looking forward to seeing some of your ideas

Well the other idea i had. Was to get a petrol cutter and dig a pit in my garage floor

 

[koalar]

Worth extending the base forwards slightly

So the pivot point isn't right at the end

It would stop the back tipping as you hit the stop

 

[Baggey]

Or car cribs?

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Sorry Baggy, I don't see the link?

Just noticed it's popped up now.

 

[Baggey]

Just noticed it's popped up now

Ive just found new and improved Ramps.

 

[koalar]

I use ramps all the time, normally just to visually inspect for leaks or damage. Starter motor

But their usefulness is also very limited

The front wheels have to come off for most things, suspension arms, hubs, driveshafts, discs, calipers, drive shafts, wheel bearing, gearbox subframe

8.5" is about right for what I do, it's tight underneath, your arms not out stretched, and most things are still reachable from top without being on tip toes


But if you were say mainly welding underneath being able to sit up would be better

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I use ramps all the time, normally just to visually inspect for leaks or damage. Starter motor

But their usefulness is also very limited

The front wheels have to come off for most things, suspension arms, hubs, driveshafts, discs, calipers, drive shafts, wheel bearing, gearbox subframe

8.5" is about right for what I do, it's tight underneath, your arms not out stretched, and most things are still reachable from top without being on tip toes


But if you were say mainly welding underneath being able to sit up would be better

One thing I do like to use my ramps for is checking the gearbox oil level, for which, of course, you need the car to be level. I've mentioned this before, that my drive/hard standing runs downhill towards the roadside. If I reverse the car onto it and put the ramps in front of the front wheels then, when I've run the car up onto them, it ends up completely level with me able to comfortably get under the front to remove the level/fill plug. It's almost as if the builder calculated the gradient to be "just right"! what it also makes me very aware of though is not to run the car too aggressively against the ramp end stop for fear of tipping the ramp forward - As mentioned by koalar above. Luckily my ramps have a small "lean angle" on the end but, following koalar's comments, which I think he's made elsewhere on more than one occasion? I've been meaning to cut the bottom rails and increase the angle a bit with some more angle iron. It'll be a nice wee project and give me something to weld again - haven't welded anything for maybe a couple of years now and I need to keep my hand in!

 

[Baggey]

One thing I do like to use my ramps for is checking the gearbox oil level, for which, of course, you need the car to be level. I've mentioned this before, that my drive/hard standing runs downhill towards the roadside. If I reverse the car onto it and put the ramps in front of the front wheels then, when I've run the car up onto them, it ends up completely level with me able to comfortably get under the front to remove the level/fill plug. It's almost as if the builder calculated the gradient to be "just right"! what it also makes me very aware of though is not to run the car too aggressively against the ramp end stop for fear of tipping the ramp forward - As mentioned by koalar above. Luckily my ramps have a small "lean angle" on the end but, following koalar's comments, which I think he's made elsewhere on more than one occasion? I've been meaning to cut the bottom rails and increase the angle a bit with some more angle iron. It'll be a nice wee project and give me something to weld again - haven't welded anything for maybe a couple of years now and I need to keep my hand in!

How about attaching lorry straps on to the ramps and run them under rear wheel that way they wont tip or slip away!

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Now if your anything to do with health and saftey! Go and annoy someone else!

Alright Stockton Rush… I hear carbon fibre is a good material for this!!

Seriously though you still want them to be safe a lot of the solid wood designs are good as they are solid. You could make some from steel and you could probably make them stronger than the ones you can buy, but you’d have no idea at what point they would fail as the bought ones obviously get tested, also the cost of the steel would probably outweigh buying a cheap set, there are always loads on Facebook market place as well as car boot sales.

I know a lot of car YouTubers make wooden axle stands which are very solid and the designs they use make them very safe as it’s effectively (like the pictures above) just a stack of solid wood

 

[DaveMcT]

Have you seem the UK costs of 9 inch x 2 inch timber? HOW MUCH !!! There's also the issue of one or both ramps skidding forward** when you try to drive up. In my opinion you need the base board long enough for the all 4 wheels to roll on before the forward end hits the ramp. That's even more monet and a storage nightmare.

** I stopped using ramps decades ago for exactly this reason.

This is an interesting idea though I would REALLY WANT to see one before buying. The lead screw action looks similar to the Eazy Rizer motorcycle lift.

KATSU Car Gear Portable Pivot Car Lift 1500KG MR8050-1 | eBay UK

Item Type: 1500kg Portable Pivot Car Lift. Max Lift Capacity: 1500kg. During raising it can be stopped at any height before locking the vehicle out level. Easy to raise a vehicle either manually or with an electric drill of 90Nm or more.

www.ebay.co.uk

Sealey offer something very similar for nearly 2x the price.

Pardon our interruption...

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Have you seem the UK costs of 9 inch x 2 inch timber? HOW MUCH !!! There's also the issue of one or both ramps skidding forward** when you try to drive up. In my opinion you need the base board long enough for the all 4 wheels to roll on before the forward end hits the ramp. That's even more monet and a storage nightmare.

** I stopped using ramps decades ago for exactly this reason.

This is an interesting idea though I would REALLY WANT to see one before buying. The lead screw action looks similar to the Eazy Rizer motorcycle lift.

KATSU Car Gear Portable Pivot Car Lift 1500KG MR8050-1 | eBay UK

Item Type: 1500kg Portable Pivot Car Lift. Max Lift Capacity: 1500kg. During raising it can be stopped at any height before locking the vehicle out level. Easy to raise a vehicle either manually or with an electric drill of 90Nm or more.

www.ebay.co.uk

Sealey offer something very similar for nearly 2x the price.

Pardon our interruption...

One of the unexpected benefits of extending the slope of the ramps is that I've never had them slip since doing it. In their standard configuration it can be a bit brutal on the clutch and the extended slope greatly reduces this too. Storage really isn't a problem as I stand them on their end with one nestling inside the other

By the way. I've mentioned my engine lift a few times in the past and the black tubular construction on the right is it. You can't see the wheeled base in this shot, but the tube with the bright coloured chain is part of the engine stand I built into it when I was into building engines. Here's a better overall view of the contraption showing the top arm which the block and tackle hangs from. It can move back and forth on the top arm as needed to accommodate different reaches on different vehicles.

Of course you can also now appreciate the extent of my hoarding of "stuff which might be useful one day - only not today"

Mike, do you recognise the lifting bar in the lower foreground, just behind the lifting tackle chain?

 

[Baggey]

Ive just found some 4x2 CLS for £4 a length!? Still a bit pricey.

 

[DaveMcT]

Ive just found some 4x2 CLS for £4 a length!? Still a bit pricey.

My local scrapyard often has angle, box and round tubing. It's often a bit bent but that's no problem for a job like this.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

“A bit bent” means pre weakened, and while you could argue that thick angle is still going to be plenty strong enough. Or that you can also ad strength with vertical pieces or make triangular truss shapes in the construction, I think I’d still rather use known good steel from a good source rather than pre bent bits of potentially fatigued angle.

Especially if I’m going to be relying on to stop me getting dead.


A few years back I talked to my dad about making some ramps, he is a well seasoned welder, who honed his craft over nearly 50 years, he built the roll cages and chassis for the lotus GT1 car, the Audi and Bentley Le Manns cars and he worked in the oil and gas industry for years where they are regularly dealing with pipes welded to contain pressures in the thousands of PSI….

His advise was “Don’t” just buy some from a reputable brand, and the cost to you it I got the raw materials will almost certainly outweigh the cost of something that someone has made to a professional standard where the can buy steel cheap by the hundreds of tons a year.

 

[DaveMcT]

Bent like a cork-screw would be useless. I mean the metal is not perfectly straight. It's easily corrected and we are not working at the edge of its structural envelope.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Bent like a cork-screw would be useless. I mean the metal is not perfectly straight. It's easily corrected and we are not working at the edge of its structural envelope.

True and I know what you’re saying…. It’s not bending it that’s the issue, it’s the bending it back that causes the problem and from a scrap yard you have no idea how many times that’s happened.

I’m all for chopping a straight bit out of a longer bent bit of steel because you can see it’s straight and you’ll never perfectly bend something back straight so you know it’s likely to be good, and that’s fine for something less critical

I’m not going to climb under a car that is supported by scrap yard steel that had to be beaten back straight by a hammer… I’d rather just buy new steel.

Going back to my opening statement about Stockton Rush… he had a wealth of technology on his side, but he also though he knew better than the material experts who told him that using carbon fibre in his submarine was a complete unknown and warned him time and time again against it.

And look how that worked out for him, bent scrap yard steel is a complete unknown

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

True and I know what you’re saying…. It’s not bending it that’s the issue, it’s the bending it back that causes the problem and from a scrap yard you have no idea how many times that’s happened.

I’m all for chopping a straight bit out of a longer bent bit of steel because you can see it’s straight and you’ll never perfectly bend something back straight so you know it’s likely to be good, and that’s fine for something less critical

I’m not going to climb under a car that is supported by scrap yard steel that had to be beaten back straight by a hammer… I’d rather just buy new steel.

Going back to my opening statement about Stockton Rush… he had a wealth of technology on his side, but he also though he knew better than the material experts who told him that using carbon fibre in his submarine was a complete unknown and warned him time and time again against it.

And look how that worked out for him, bent scrap yard steel is a complete unknown

When I had the gardening squad, we were quartered on the same site as the local authority parks workshops. There were always road warning signs - you know the type, made from 1" angle to support "road closed" "Men at work" and others - which had been damaged, often I think, because someone had run over them? Some were quite mangled but some with very little structural damage although the actual sign was ripped out. They just lay in a heap starting to rust. I was allowed to use them for any purpose I liked, like making warning signs for footpaths etc where we were working. Some of the really nice straight pieces came to live with me for my own projects.