Shiny! 
Shiny!
So when are we--I mean, your friend and his friend--picking it up? Remember I--I mean, someone who knows your friend--leave for Austin on Thursday.
And, um, just to keep the streak going, I'm in Orlando Monday evening--you know, if you need a one-way ride there. I mean, if your friend does.
I watched a guy load my 90 audi v8 Quattro into the back of a box truck using oak 2x12 boards. I already had the cash in hand. before he loaded it.
My sports racer has a 2" ride height and the leading edge of the splitter is 2-1/2' from the centerline of the front wheels. This is like a 5 degree approach angle which makes loading on a trailer very challenging. After a number of poor ideas, I finally got 2 sets of the 6' Harbor Fright flat steel ramps and some small, sturdy drive-on car work ramps. I back the truck onto the work ramps to raise the tongue of the trailer a foot or so and the "front half" steel ramps have welded 1" square steel trestles I made bolted on. The "rear half" ramps get a 4' section of 2x8 to get the splitter to clear the ramp 'til the front wheels get there.
The whole affair nests for easy storage atop the big tongue box that carries the canopies, jacks, fuel jugs and such.
David S. Wallens wrote: And, um, just to keep the streak going, I'm in Orlando Monday evening--you know, if you need a one-way ride there. I mean, if your friend does.
If I was hardcore I'd drive it home, wouldn't i?
JG Pasterjak wrote:David S. Wallens wrote: And, um, just to keep the streak going, I'm in Orlando Monday evening--you know, if you need a one-way ride there. I mean, if your friend does.If I was hardcore I'd drive it home, wouldn't i?
Your friend totally would.
After some trial eyeballing this afternoon, I'm thinking the HF ramps with the rear of the wagon backed onto service ramps will do the trick. The trailer is actually a motorcycle trailer, so the neck is somewhat short. So when the rear of the Roadmonster lifts a bit it should translate into some nice angle. And with nothing in front of the front wheels or behind the rear wheels the only real dragging I have to worry about is the creamy middle.
You know there's like a giant van at the office, right?
Back to the boards:
Southern yellow pine has a bending strength of ~14000psi according to the interwebs.
Assuming a 2x8 board (1.5 * 7-1/4 actual), 6' long
Bending stress is Mc/I
M = moment = load * half of board length = 36*w
c = distance from neutral axis = half of board thickness = 0.75
I = moment of inertia = bh^3 / 12 = 7.25 * 1.5^3 / 12 = 2.04
Safety factor = 2 (don't stand or lay under it).
M*c/I = S / SF
(36*w) * 0.75 / 2.04 = 14000 / 2
w ~= 530lb
This is the allowable load for one board, new and dry. Assuming I've done my math right after midnight.
So with two boards, can load just about any formula car. Marginal for a Miata, if you believe in safety factors.
That's a lot of math to prove what some of us already knew! 
Sometimes logic works... a big knot and the board won't be worth E36 M3, regardless of what the math says. 
MattGent wrote: if you believe in safety factors.
For wood bought from Home Depot (not loaded in compression), I'd go with about 3.0. 
Sounds like you already have a workable plan, but for my F500 here's what worked: I used ~7ft long 2x8s for ramps. HF aluminum ends with pins on the bed so the ramps didn't slide off and make a youtube moment. My trailer was a tilt bed, and I had a chain to limit tilt so that it would tilt to make the ramps and bed level and avoid high-centering the car. Worked great, and allowed single-person loading/unloading.
i've seen full size pickups loaded onto trailers using rotten old 2X6 boards as ramps and they didn't break... they deflected a bit, but didn't break..
I carry a set of plastic oil change ramps in my truck for the rear wheels of the truck. Makes all the difference in the world, at least until somebody steals them...
JG Pasterjak wrote: As long as we're on the subject, the other thing I'm concerned with is rollover angle. Since the thing has like zero ride height, the angle between the ramps and the trailer will need to be conquered at some point, lest the car get high-centered. Better to raise the rear of the tow vehicle, like on a couple of service ramps, or put those same ramps under the ends of the loading ramps? I'm thinking the smart money for one-man loading is a hand crank winch like this http://www.harborfreight.com/1200-lb-capacity-strap-winch-65115.html with a tow-strap around the top roll hoop. I mean my friend.
A friend who runs an F500 (club racing) uses 4x100 compact spares with narrow tires for loading and storage. Helps a lot with approach angle and they lessen the track width so the car is easier to walk around in his truck. And while you're in FL where this isn't an issue, he winters the car on them so his Hoosiers don't freeze in the garage (it's not good to freeze your Ho Ho's).
It's difficult to describe, but he picks up the whole car by the roll hoop. Another local I know running in autox uses an electric winch on a modified 10' H-F trailer. IIRC, he also load it solo towing from the roll hoop. I'm pretty sure the SOP for getting a dead car back to pits in road racing is the loop the tow strap to the hoop, so that wouldn't worry me.
JG Pasterjak wrote:Woody wrote: You mean your friend's shoulders, right?Yeah. He's a bit of a fireplug.
that's what she said!
I don't know what is most terrifying about that picture: the ramp setup itself, the lack of cross bracing for the ramp struts or the center of gravity with the car loaded. But I do like the driver's 'stache!
You just know he's wearing a tie.
BTW, a Google search on that image (I've had it in my collection for years) pops up the following info on Jalopnik:
"This is Stuart Lewis-Evans and Tony Harris in September 1953, lowering their Cooper 500 Formula 3 racing car from the roof of a Land Rover at the Crystal Palace race circuit."
I also came across this.
Keith Tanner wrote: You just know he's wearing a tie. BTW, a Google search on that image (I've had it in my collection for years) pops up the following info on Jalopnik: "This is Stuart Lewis-Evans and Tony Harris in September 1953, lowering their Cooper 500 Formula 3 racing car from the roof of a Land Rover at the Crystal Palace race circuit." I also came across this.
That is insane. To think that when that happened, it was an embarrassing but ultimately probably mostly forgotten incident. If that happened today, it would probably affect the stock market for weeks.
You'll need to log in to post.
