Lift it #2

OK,  well now the lift is in place but with low profile cars like both corvettes I need to have ramps to get those cars over the lift.  The C4 corvette will park over this lift on a regular basis, so I want the ramps to be built to a good standard, look fairly good, but I also want them to be able to break down into piece and I want them to be movable, without a hernia!

So instead of stacked 2x10 or 2x12 lumber, I'm building these with three 2x4 ribs and covered with plywood,  I ran each 2x4 through a table saw to true up the edges and to take the height down just a bit.  So there will be one rib on each side and one down the middle.  The plywood is glued and nailed onto the 2x4 ribs.

Another big part of this design is that the ramps are built in 3 sections, the angled ramp section, the main long section, and another small section to extend the front.  Each of the section can be removed from the front of the back of the ramp once the car is lifted to gain greater access to the front or rear area of the car.  This allows more freedom for a wheeled shop seat, engine or transmission stand.

In this picture you can see that the 2x4 ribs are notched where the pieces come together.  These joints are held together with 3/8" threaded rod, I put a hex nut on one end of a section and just welded the hex nut in place, esentially creating a 14" long 3/8" bolt.  That slides through all the ribs and on the last rid a "Tee Nut" is embedded in the rib and the whole assembly bolts together.

The thing I like about making the ramps this way is you can easily create a extra long ramp front piece with a very gentle rise.  With cars like corvettes the typical ramp angle will not due, they hit the front and that tend to just push the ramps on the concrete.  The other thing I do is to use a very thing plywood section as the front of the ramp so that the front tires get onto the ramp and apply some weight to the ramp, this helps it to stick in place and not just push backwards.

So the finished product of the ramps with the lift in place looks like this.  I spent a lot of extra time painting as I wanted it to look good, no bare wood, and it will help keep it from rotting when I park over it when things are wet.

Just a little electrical work to do now.