Hot Rods Overhead Hoist...on second thought

I’ve asked my buddy to check into a few things for me but so far he’s been too busy. He was seriously into construction and is now a Fire Captain and his creed is safety...

 

https://www.justanswer.com/sip/just...t=be&msclkid=8d8566d95d031c5f29a404d0bb24fe14

 

You seem so defensive ?[/QUOTE]

Can’t blame him if he is, - all the negative posts about engineers, - not all seemingly in jest. I guess I am defensive also.
And I only designed and supervised multi-storey houses when I was younger, - ( although I did work for civil and structural engineers for my first year out of tertiary education ).

 

^^^^^. He has to be. It’s his profession.


Edit: guess my phone didn’t reload the page right. But look back and you’ll see what a PE is in a sense, and a burden they have.

 

My father & older brother were both P.E's , when it came time for " doing" , they were always quick to say what Couldn't be done & conspicuously quiet about what Could be .!

 

I hope you have a good insurance policy........

 

So, should everyone building a hot rod get an engineering opinion before proceeding ? Or should we just apply common sense and established practices and hope for the best? I mean what could be more dangerous than an amatuer built steel roadster with a 400hp motor, no seat belts, no roll bar, no automatic fuel shut off, no windshield wipers, bias ply tires, bump steering straight axle, non LED tail lights, loud exhausts............

I think the idea is that we can make reasonable decisions that provide us with a reasonable amount of safety which is acceptable to us as hot rodders. Even engineered stuff fails, thats why they test things.


I don't think Wild Willie Borsch had a safety engineer on his race team and everything turned out OK.

 

Thank you.....you have made my case......reminds me of this saying: "I can fix lots of things, but I cannot fix stupid".

BTW.......Wild Willie Borsch put his drag car through tech inspection......which is based on sound technical principles, not backyard guessing. Maybe you should try putting your cars through a sanctioned race body tech inspection......how would it fare?

 

So you're saying a home builder with the 400 HP car is stupid ? That's probably close to the most condescending statement made ! There are people who think everything needs to be done or examined by " experts" , I wonder how it feels to go through life feeling so paranoid ? Sad !
AFA my home garage built car with 400 + h p ( 4+# per horse power) its passed numerous NSRA Safety 23 inspections , has been on the road for 20 years & has 50k+ miles on it , no failures , ever !
AFA insurance , I ran my own construction / remodeling business for nearly 40 years , work came to me by word of mouth, , the only insurance claim I ever had was when a helper stepped on a granite counter top waiting to be installed . At 74 people are still trying to get me to work for them. IMO , engineers , experts , inspectors , etc are a highly overrated waste of time !

 

Talk w/the pro-builders, get to follow their methods.
Often they will steer
You right.
See anything shoddy, just move on.
A long in tooth, Mech Design PE.
(Might look up, 'Tales in design' cover includes a pic. of my Latest roadster.) Pitman

 

....although it has been 45 years since I was in class I do recall using both and even a dose of Metric thrown in for good measure. If the bridge deck didn't align then I'd be talking to the general contractor.

 

As the OP I’d like to remind everyone I was asking for advice and/or suggestions. I was NOT asking for for a pissing contest, arguments, and other BS. So if you want that kind of “discussion” please move on...

 

Well said.

 

• I always try to be objective and stay away from personal insinuations in my posts. You seem to believe that all builders are inept unless they have an engineering degree. Well most of us learned from the school of hard knocks by getting ourselves dirty and grimy as well as reading everything we could find about what we do. As a machinist and Machined Parts Inspector, I've helped a lot of engineers understand that things they designed were overdone, impractical, or downright unmakable. Just because you can draw something doesn't mean you can make it, and many of the smarter ones learned a lot thru humility. Working for a common goal rather selfagrandizement. They always wanted to overtolerance everything because they all wanted to "protect their a**s", which often created problems in manufacturing. Some designs were rediculously over designed, like the part that had 8 locating pins with a .0002 True Position for each one. Eight doesn't locate any more accurately than two. And all it was locating was bracket to hold the end of a large hydraulic cylinder. You could have located the bracket a 1/2" in any direction and it would not have mattered. Besides that the dimensioning was not compatible with other dimensioning on the drawing. You could not make the part. I got lots of engineering stories like that.

So, I will allow myself this one exception to trying to be objective.
"The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance. " - Albert Einstein.

"Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance." - Sun Tzu.

Sorry, but I feel like I have tried to help you, and I figured I'd earned the right to at least one personal retort. So, I'll move on now. Best of luck on whatever you build..........

 

With respect to most of those who have posted on this subject and especially to @Fortunateson, the question of what will work has been answered in several ways. After 6 pages, the OP should realize that some were definitely tongue in cheek but most would have been helpful to anyone. It's just a question of what the OP feels most comfortable with.

 

You must not travel much. I drove truck for 2 and 3/4 million miles in the 48 contiguous states and Ontario CN and I can guarantee that all those highways and bridges weren't put in place by the same contractor, but they were designed by different engineers who learned the same principles in different colleges.

 

I have been a building inspector for 18 years and I felt compelled to weigh in on the use of trusses as a way to hold a crane. The bottom chord of a truss is basically used to hole a building from separating and engineered to work with the top chord to hold the load that may be put on. Any truss doubling up the bottom chord or using it as a beam is really asking for trouble. I have seen trusses fail from incorrect installation mostly from the lack of engineered bracing not being installed. Putting any load on a bottom chord could really cause disaster with the whole roof system.

 

Well that’s how I’m leaning now...

 

I appreciate all input and the tongue in cheek stuff I thought was funny. Just don’t like bickering...

 

I appreciate your wish of “best of luck”! However, sometimes I prove the old saying, “If I didn’t have bad luck I wouldn’t have any luck at all...”! LOL

 

What you just said is absolutely true if you only look at it from one perspective. The crosstie itself, irrespective of the rest of the truss is also a "beam" in its own right. Many are grafted together with small plates which makes them poor candidates for supporing much weight. Others are one piece and are somewhat stronger. So if we consider that board as an independent member, and then strengthen it sufficiently, we actually have a pretty strong beam in its own right. If we strengthen several of these members in the same manner, we gain even more strength. It does not matter that its original purpose was to hold the walls together, it also possesses the abilty to hold weight "somewhat" and the additional scab bracing.....if done properly is going to increase that strength.

Then add to that the fact that the original truss bracing, while not designed for that purpose also adds some unknown amount of support as well. There have probably been a kazillion motors and transmissions pulled in small garages using only one or two trusses for support. There most certainly have been some failures along the
way. I remember many years ago pulling a 392 Hemi w/trans using a board atop three trusses. Don't remember if I had any upright supports temporarily in place. Being poor and having to use what I had at hand, I tried to put the cross support over 3 trusses. That meant the lifting hoist had two trusses on one side and one on the other. The board was just slightly longer than the span. Since I also needed to make the engine come forward slightly as it came upward, it tended to pull the crossbar off that one truss..............and it smacked me in the head. (Been this way ever since ) Anyway, I learned from that with no real harm.

BUT THATS WHAT I WANT OTHERS TO AVOID. Taking the time to strengthen and/or build a more proper lifting device makes it soooo much easier to do a multitude of tasks. Later today I will go back out and work on the 56 Truck........which I have hanging from two hoists/sitting on a movable cart. I lift it off the cart when I need to get to certain things and back on the cart when I want a little more stability. Going from one to the other takes me about two minutes. Its a godsend in my old age. I ran into a guy about ten years ago who was one of the older guys at the garage I hung out when I was a kid. He told me he no longer fooled with old cars cause it just got to be too hard. I'm trying to keep it doable during my old age.

Anyway, this rafter engine pulling goes on every day somewhere in the USA.....over and over. The thought here is that rather than use something possibly risky, an enthusiast might want to think how that can make a more permanent and safer ........and hopefully more user friendly than the traditional way.

I can't guarantee that everyone will do it correctly and no one will ever have a problem or an accident, but if someone does take the time to brace or improve an existing rafter lifting set up they may not only have something safer and avoid an accident, but they may find they have a very handy and convenient new tool. Thats my goal.....

I have 11 different lifting setups at my house that I have constructed over the years. Some are simple I beams attached to the bottom of 2x6s for simple lifting. Two are under leanto roofs and are limited to about 500 lbs. Makes it easy to get things off my trailer, or the other one lets me raise and lower engine blocks into a cleaning tank and a derusting tank. The 2x6s have no bracing in the form of a truss or other support. They work just fine and make an impossible task simple. At the other end of the scale I have two hoists that will lift about 4,000 lbs or more.


While not a very detailed picture, This is a small I beam attached to simple 2x6 (not trusses) roof supports. The load spreads across about 6 beams and always has at least two 2x6 beams supporting the load. I can pull my tractor up and sit an engine block on the table in the middle. I lift the block with one of those small HF 500 lb comealongs and lower it into the cleaning tank. I can't do that by hand. I let it soak for days and ocassionally brush the grease and oil off. When its done, I raise it out and hose it off. Then I slide it sideways with the small trolley on the I beam and lower it into the derusting solution. It hangs there for a couple weeks and when I take it out, magically all the rust is pretty well gone. Slide it sideway and sit it back on the table. Pick it up with the tractor and go hose it off again. Easy peesy and very convenient. I limit the load to about 500 lbs max. The leanto roof is supported by 12' 2x6s with no other truss bracing or support.
At the other end of the scale, here are some items I have picked up with "steel supported" cranes I have made. It would have been impossible for me to lift and move this stuff without a proper crane set-up. How and what anyone decides to build should co-incide with how and what they may want to lift. I'm verrry happy with what I have for my needs.

2500 LBs and not easily balanced.

Or the 15"x50" Clausing Lathe 3750 LBS


Like I saw someone else post......If you want it bad enough, you will find a way. I found ways to do what I want. Anyone wanting similar things can get there if they want them enough to work at it.

 

Ekimneirbo,
you have the coolest things! In about 1977 I walked into a machine shop for a job, got hired, even thought I had no experience. During this time due to hiring practices the shop was making a lot of out of tolerance products! So Fred, my boss, asked me if I wanted to take on second shift “ rework”? I was a fast learner, only been there one year! I loved my work. I’m telling you all this because Fred put me on a lathe exactly like the one you have! I loved that machine! It was soooo user friendly! And powerful! I was in rework for over a year , until I quit for the Fire Dept!
Can I come play at your place sometime?






Bones

 

You are welcome to visit if you ever get to Ky. Maybe a trip to the Nationals in August. Thanks for the compliment, I think you have some pretty cool stuff........and stories too.

 

Ekimneirbo, I built a car port just like your lean to. I went to justanswer.com and for maybe $75 they figured the post and I beam size for span and snow load and the spacing for the 2x10 rafters. People ask is that beam necessary, maybe not but I don't have to worry about snow load crushing my cars And I can pick up anything I want. Maybe it will even keep the garage from falling down.

 

Funny how you can have it all Engineer designed and built etc and then some clown comes along and thinks he knows best and over loads it...
Or the clown builds it and pulls his shop ceiling down or worse...
You just can't engineeer for stupid.

 

Saw this on the net.
As a rule of thumb, snow weighs approximately 20 pounds per cubic foot, or 1.25 pounds per inch of depth. Depending on moisture content, snow can weigh from 1 pound per cubic foot to over 21 pounds per cubic foot.


You are of the same school of thought that I am, overbuild and everything should be fine. Post some pics......
Yet another happy guy with a crane

 

Well a little up-date,
I read many of the posts a few times and felt that tempting physics with having a hoist hung from my trusses would not be a good/smart thing. I decided to use my 2”x12” multi layered Douglas Fir beam to hang the hoist from.

And then this happened... Princess Auto have “scratch and dent” sales from time to time and I went to one two Saturdays ago. Found a 30 ton press knocked down from around “$1000” to $600 and further reduced to $300 and I offered $200 for the win! But as I was getting ready for it to be loaded I saw a one ton gantry that was on sale for $800 knocked down to $300 and again I offered $200. So now I have a one ton gantry and peace of mind!

But I do have one question. This gantry comes within 1/2” of my garage door when it is open. I’ll probably just shorten the two legs that go into the tube that allows adjustment of height and should be okay.

Now is this going to raise a variety of concerns, suggestions, remedies, or arguments? LOL

 

Is it on castors?

 

Just came across this thread. Didn’t go through all 6 pages, but was curious as to the outcome because I needed an overhead gantry crane and built one (fixed from 2”x10”s). Without seeing the PA gantry you’re speaking about it’s hard to say, but you should be fine. I’m not sure why you would mod it if it slides through the door as is. My only word of caution is to inspect all the welds first because lots of the their stuff is very suspect, and when it comes to load carrying, you cannot take chances. From this pic of the PA 1 ton gantry I don’t see any means of height adjustment.

 

I want to lower it 2-4” inches for better clearance. In the pic you can see two horseshoe type handles which act as levers to raise the gantry. Then after is higher/lower the safety pin makes sure it position.