Stacking Storage

I've run out of room! We are currently storing our Formula Ford on a 4 post stacker in our garage. I need to rent a storage unit and I'm wondering if there are any 'lift' products available that don't require 20 amp service to operate. I have a dedicated 20 amp service for my lift and I routinely blow the breaker when it first starts up so I'm sure the one I have won't work at the storage unit.

I'm open to any creative ideas or products that would allow me to stack two cars in the unit.

Thanks

Scott

A 4 post lift is certainly overkill for most any OW car.

I use a gantry I built to lift the car onto a table with a 12v winch. Zero problems.

You could probably build some really tall saw horses to store it on.

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Originally Posted by BeerBudgetRacing

A 4 post lift is certainly overkill for most any OW car.

I use a gantry I built to lift the car onto a table with a 12v winch. Zero problems.

You could probably build some really tall saw horses to store it on.

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I concur, we use a 12v bumper winch to lift our FFord's every day.

My 4 post lift works on a 15amp receptacle in my garage. Maybe look into a different lift?

You may want to try swapping out the breaker, they do degrade over time. What size wire is between the breaker and lift, and how far apart are they?

I used to have a tilting rig in the trailer to carry my Royale over a Titan
2 12" wide ramps on a crossbar about 3 feet off the floor
pull the Royale up backwards with 12v winch until it just passes the balance point and tilts a bit
insert a couple of locking bars, and roll the Titan under

Posting pictures of some of these solutions might help the adventurous among get some ideas!

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Originally Posted by Garey Guzman

Posting pictures of some of these solutions might help the adventurous among get some ideas!

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The black lift in the background easily lifts the Fords using a small winch and small 12v Lithium battery.
(ground level to tall stands height in just a few seconds).

No electricity needed if you could use a chain fall hoist like this:

https://www.harborfreight.com/1-ton-...hoist-996.html

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Originally Posted by David Ferguson

No electricity needed if you could use a chain fall hoist like this:

https://www.harborfreight.com/1-ton-...hoist-996.html

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Yes, the chain falls work well.. but do require some 18" of additional height at the lifting point.
SD,FV80

Charlie,

I am looking to build or buy something like this now. Any chance you have photos of this setup?

My understanding is that what you describe would allow two FF cars (in my case) to fit in a trailer that is shorter than the total length of both cars. I want to put two cars in a 24' ideally.

Thank you - Ben

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Originally Posted by Charlie Schmidt

I used to have a tilting rig in the trailer to carry my Royale over a Titan
2 12" wide ramps on a crossbar about 3 feet off the floor
pull the Royale up backwards with 12v winch until it just passes the balance point and tilts a bit
insert a couple of locking bars, and roll the Titan under

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Our setup might be a little tall for your space, but pallet racking is really cheap and available in lots of different sizes. We use a forklift to put the cars up.

Ben
sorry no photos---it was 20 years ago
but it did allow 2 cars in a 18 ft trailer
used it for 10 years

Just putting on my thinking cap, but if you find the CG compared to the length of the car (should be easy with scales, or use a lift and an engine tilter), and then build a "teeter totter" platform with the pivot point slightly one side or the other from that balance point, you could pick the height to pivot at and in a sea-van, just attach the bearings directly to the walls. A trailer will probably need some kind of A-frame structure, perhaps made of thin wall 2x4 steel straddling the wheel wells. After the platform rotates you can just us hitch pins to lock it, but it does seem that you will need a winch to restrain it to bring it back down.

A friend of mine has a trailer for his FSV that works this way. Pretty freaky to watch him load.

Rick
that's pretty much what mine was. A teeter totter with the pivot a bit off center so that the back end was heavy when unloaded. When you pulled the car up, it got heavy on the front and tilted that way
When all loaded, the upper car had it's rear end to the front of the trailer, and the platform was inclined so that the nose was higher, to allow the lower car's roll bar had clearance.
Pivot was about 3ft off the floor, and ramp (at rear end of trailer) was maybe 4.5ft off the floor when secured
To unload, just put a foot of slack in the winch line and push the ramp down. Car would roll enough to get the CG behind the pivot, then let out winch line to roll it out of the trailer

Thanks to both of you for replying.

I am thinking about fluid spills and other potential issues from having the engine at an angle for extended periods of time. Any special prep or consideration on the car side when using this type of system?

The teeter-totter does seem much better than building a short lift - given the low weight of our cars.

Thanks again,

Ben

only problem I ever had was a slight drip from the Hewland shifter
nobody has ever invented a perfect seal for those LOL

if I was building one purely for storage, I'd think about something similar to a 4 post lift. Pivot the ramps at one end and suck the other end up with a hoist could probably use 4x4s and a couple of HF 12v winches

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Originally Posted by Charlie Schmidt

if I was building one purely for storage, I'd think about something similar to a 4 post lift. Pivot the ramps at one end and suck the other end up with a hoist could probably use 4x4s and a couple of HF 12v winches

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We built something like this in our trailer previously. Front had one cheapy tool box on each side (tall enough to clear the bottom car), ramps hinged at the top of the tool box. Car pushed/winched up so front tires on top of the tool boxes, and a square tube frame at the back of the ramps to lift. We used a single winch at the front of the trailer (5th wheel, so had the attic to mount it in). Once the car was in place, straps over the wheels held it in place while the same winch was used over a pulley on the lift frame to lift the rear of the ramps into place. Built some 'legs' under the rear, but always left the winch snug too. No issues for a lot of miles.

Gary

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For vees, we used relatively light weight plywood boxes for the front tires of one car. Backed the first car in, put the boxes 'behind' the front wheels. Then pushed the second car in with a wooden ramp over the front tires of the 1st car to a 'dimple' in the top of each plywood box. Secured mostly the rear of each car with 'lesser secure' holding for the front tires of each. Jim Brookshire towed 2 cars for MANY years with this set up.(I stole his idea).

No pix since this was 20 years ago, but towed 2 cars from Atlanta to Sebring and back with no issues. I still have the plywood boxes.

Steve, FV80

I wish I had some good car models to knock this out in fusion, although I suppose a simple prism for a car shape should work.

In this arrangement, you can put two cars in, level, at roughly 4/3 the length of a single car, and 4/3 the height of a single car.

Put the winch at whatever is going to be the back, maybe have a rack back there (and in the front) for some kind of ballast to adjust the balance point for different cars/configurations. You could even put the tires in front of the lower car, or fuel, whatever.

If you designed the trailer from scratch, one could build the supports into the walls and mount some pillow blocks on there as the pivots.

In this one it would take probably 205% of the height. In both cases, you'd just use something like hitch pins to lock the platform in place.

I think the big issue with designs like this is that the platform is always going to be in the way, along with how to design it such that the top car doesn't drag going in. That's what makes a 4-post arrangement a lot easier to deal with. A hydraulic 4-post with a foot or crank pump might be the most versatile.

Dan

If you still use this trailer and have it at the next Crossflow Race or CSRG event, I would like to take a look in person.

- Ben

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Originally Posted by DanW

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Originally Posted by Ben_Zlotkin

Dan

If you still use this trailer and have it at the next Crossflow Race or CSRG event, I would like to take a look in person.

- Ben

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Hello Ben,

Of course, glad to. We borrowed a "trestle" from Jay Streets. He and his brother used to pack two Formula Vees in his trailer. I rolled my Crossle gearbox first into the trailer. We set the trestle over the front roll hoop of the Crossle. We then put ramps on the trestle and winched the Lotus 51 on to the trestle. We discovered we needed more clearance, so we pulled the front wheels off the Crossle, Then we tied the 51 down. It was time consuming and a bit awkward, but we were able tow two cars in one light trailer all the way to the 50th anniversary at Road America.

If we did it again, we would either make the trestle taller or add some 4x6 wood blocks under the trestle and leave the front wheels on the Crossle.

Although the 'trestle' picturama looks cool, the method Jim and I used to transport vees requires no permanent structure in the trailer and keeps both roll bars at (close to) the same height while still keeping most of the weight on the floor.
Stealing Rick's 'cars', I made a very poor attempt to depict MY suggestion.

The front tire support boxes sit OVER the 1st car's front tires and you place a ramp from the floor to the top. Roll (or winch) the car up the ramp and onto the box (with appropriate wheel chocks) and you're done (more or less. Imagine in my pic that all rear tires are firmly on the ground as are the front tires of car 1 - backed in. and all things are NOT skewed as in my picture (I'm not very good at drawing.)

My boxes weigh only .. maybe 10-15 lbs each. We're only supporting maybe 20% of the total car weight instead of ALL of it PLUS the 'tilt bed' structure. Pretty light compared to the steel/AL? structure required for a 'tilt-bed' rotating on another quite massive structure.
https://www.apexspeed.com/forums/att...d=113300&stc=1
This ends up being quite close to DanW's post above, but without all the steel structure.
Once the angled car is unloaded, the boxes are siimply picked up and moved out of the way to roll car 1 out. Clears the area of the trailer too.

Of course this is not really related to the needs/desires of the OP, but this thread kinda drifted off to 'trailer loading' instead of (or in addition to) 'stackable' long term storage.

I'll leave now :-).
Steve, FV80

Well done on the box idea, Steve.

We used the trestle because it was offered to us at the time. It was completely removable, just set in place and the cargo straps over the front wheels held everything in place. I had originally thought about using a pair of motorcycle stands, or wood boxes over the front wheels but took Jay's offer and ran with it.