In London I once spent a very enjoyable half hour or so sitting with a pint
outside of a pub in SoHo. The reason, other than the obvious, that I had
such a good time is that the traffic wardens were there, with a small fleet
of little flat-bed trucks that had a cherry-picker lift that swung out,
clamped to the wheels of the offending car and picked it straight up and
onto the bed of the truck. Took about 3 minutes per car. Quite
amazing. Traffic was so dense that even if a driver had wanted to move his
car, he probably couldn't have, and would have been in danger of being
transported to the car impound inside his car!
My advice is to have aluminium ramps fabricated that are say 13' long and
have channels on the floor of the truck so that they have dedicated space
that they can always be slid into. If you do it right, you never have to
actually pick them up - just pull them out into position, and then slide
them back. Checkerboard aluminium plate for the top surface gives great
traction, even when wet.
Brian
At 09:32 AM 08/11/1999 -0400, you wrote:
>A. Sta. Maria wrote:
> >
> > I have been using a single-axle open trailer for the last two years to tow
> > either a TR4 or a Lotus to the track. I wanted to shift to a closed
> trailer
> > to protect the car during the long drives to the circuit, but none are
> > available here.
> >
> > Some months ago, I bought a reconditioned Isuzu truck with a 14' bed and
> > what they call "flat-low" wheels: that is, it has small (13") rear wheels
> > so that the truck bed is flat (no wheel arches) and only 24" high. It has
> > an enclosed body. The problem is how to get the car into the track, since
> > the low ground clearance of the race cars require long, heavy ramps
> that are
> > difficult to assemble. I was hoping that there would be an easier-to-use
> > alternative to ramps.
> >
> > Does anyone on the List have any suggestions? Would a hydraulic lift (like
> > they ones on big enclosed trailers) be an alternative? Can they be fitted
> > to a small truck? Does anyone have a source for them?
> >
> > Many thanks in advance, and regards,
> >
> > Andres
> > Manila
>
>Andres
>
>"Big Rig" hydraulic lifts would be too heavy for you. Many people here
>with "medium" sized enclosed trailers with two or more levels of cars
>use internal "ramps" lifted on electric winches.
>
>You could use a modified version of this. Lay the ramps on the ground
>behind your truck; drive or push the car on to the ramps; lift the truck
>end with two electric winches; attach the ramps to the truck bed [1/2"
>pivot bar?].
>
>At this stage getting the car inside the truck is still a problen but
>there seems to be three choices -
> - 1 - have internal ramps at a similar angle, leaves lots of storage
>space underneath
> - 2 - have the ramps themselves "roll" inside the truck with two more
>winches at the front, the ramps would pivot level at a certain stage
> - 3 - have a means of lifting the rear of the ramps to the truck bed
>level, this could be the existing winches reconnected to the rear but at
>an angle [make sure the light end of the car is at the rear] -or-
>hydraulic jacks -or- several strong friends -etc-.
>
>I thought about all this with my old trailer - but then took the easy
>way out and bought a beavertail trailer. So all the above is theory.
>
>Final thought - just seen a dumpster truck outside the office. The
>garbage skips are lifted up with pivotted arms. Maybe you could work on
>that principle. Pivot some vertical arms at the rear of the truck bed
>and control them with winches at the front. The arms would then pivot
>"out and down" to pick up the car. Might even be able to do this without
>"ramps" under the wheels.
>
>Design it all to Lotus standards and it wouldn't be too heavy.
>
>Hope this gives you some ideas.
>
>Derek
Brian Evans
Director, Global Sales
UUNET, An MCI WorldCom Company
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