Lifting a Car

I can pick up an Ariel Atom.

I have on occasion lifted the back end of my locost and swung it around to manouvre it in the yard ;) Probably not exactly a superhuman feat of strength, all the weight's in the front and it weighs in a a tad over 1/2 tonne..

"Tony \(UncleFista\)" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Bit tubby for something like that, isn't it? That's similar weight to a

2cv.

When I was a kid, my dad had a rear engined Simca 1000. He was working on it underneath the front end and was under it from the left hand wheel arch.It fell off the jack (yes, pillock!) onto him. He managed to do a push up and lock his arms out while shouting for my mum to come and put the jack back under it..

Mike P

I've lifted the body off a 2cv off with the help of one other big bloke. Does that count, even though they are made of tinfoil?

Mike P

I once lifted up a Ford Anglia van in order to get the running gear out because I was young, very fit and stupid.

18 months later I was on the operating table having major spinal surgery as a result of the stupidity. I've been paying the price for the last 19 years and will until the day I die.

I think it's pretty difficult to build a car under 500kg at home without some pretty spiffy materials/fabrication. Especially if you want things like lights and other road-going legalities.

I spent the summer of 2008 helping a chap rebuild a Pinto Engined Sports2000 car in a small industrial unit. There were weight saving developments to be made in places like bits and bobs of bodywork which was largely glass/carbon fibre but it was fairly minimalist and tipped the scales at just over 500kg.

I could be wrong, but the production Seven replicas are all around that weight or more I think unless they're pretty expensive aren't they?

One of the Hillclimbing blokes Bob Sherunckle is friendly with has a Hayabusa engined Fisher Fury which is around 400kg and it is much more minimalist than a 2CV.

After some quite major spannerage, I deftly kicked the gearbox off my Carlton and it landed on my hand which pinned me under the car on my back for a while.

Eventually I managed to reach a jack handle behind me which I used to lever a gap between the 'box and the garage floor big enough to get my hand out.

Gearbox was heavy enough, I don't think I'd have managed the whole car.

Not for a car with a zetec it isn't. Some of the Lotus Seven inpsired cars can get to around 450kg, but that's generally with a Hayabusa, R1, blade or ZX12 engine.

With a strong Zetec or a standard Vauxhall XE, it will do 60 in under 5, so it's hardly a terrible power / weight ratio. With the Hayabusa, it'll be good for 3.5 seconds to 60mph.

P.S. Before anyone says bikes are faster, yes they are, but you can't fall off a locost and kill yourself.

Which is more of an acheivement, because the Pinto in itself is no lightweight.

438kg. Not that I'm an anorak.

:-)

My mother's cousin was working on his car and it fell on him and killed him. Not a terribly cheery story, but there you go.

Douglas Payne gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

The four-pot Mehari's likely to be about 450kg, I think. With a normal 2cv engine & box, it'd be nearer 400.

"Bob Sherunckle" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Yeh, I think that's probably the key - fairly weighty engine, box and suspension lifted from a road car that never had "light weight" as a priority. Iron block & head, no?

"Bob Sherunckle" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I s'pose I'm just too used to engines I can lift on my own. Had the engine out the van the other evening. I can carry the gearbox with one hand - even with the bigger van drum brakes on it - whilst the engine can be carried by one person, even with the VERY heavy '70s flywheel - damn thing must be nearly 2" thick.

Oh, sure... Even lighter, and it'd be even more lethal.

Yes, this happened to a guy I used to work with's father while they were working on a car together, oh , probably about 12 years ago now. Very unpleasant.

Mike P

One of my dads mates had a four poster ramp fail on him in the '60s sometime. He didn't get to tell anyone that tale.

I've had stuff fall off axle stands, but I'm quite not daft enough to be underneath 'em at the time.

ISTR we weighed the unfitted, dry sumped engine at about 130kg, that may have been without anciliaries and definately empty of fluids.

The 'box was an old Formula Ford Hewland transaxle.

Suspension was pretty lightweight rose jointed bespoke steel double wishbones as per Formula Ford of 20 odd years ago.

Plenty of weight savings to be made in the engine department, but the point was that other competitors were lumbered with the same anchor.

Admittedly the car we were working on was originally designed to be SVAable, so wasn't to the Chapman 'fall apart when it crosses the finish line' construction standards but to get much lighter I think you'd be looking to making a fully carbon/aluminium tub. Our budget was measured in portions of fish and chips, cups of tea and the odd packet of biscuits so I think we did OK.

I still reckon 500kg isn't that easy in a kit car, and especially not a Locost.

I've had stuff fall of jacks, but I'm never under it if it's only supported by a jack...

We had an old GSA we were scrapping. We'd taken most of it out bar the engine and box. We worked out the easiest way to finish it off was with a 12" grinder, so we cut away most of the body around the engine to help get it out, then my mate was underneath it cutting horizontally across the car with the small grinder. He cut through some pipes which pissed green fluid all over him. Never seen him move so fast before or since....

Mike P

If you can get the power down.

I actually know someone with a lighter car than this one, but with a 3.9 litre Rover V8 mid mounted on a Renault Un1 gearbox (inverted and reversed to lower the CoG). His car is also on throttle bodies and is reputed to have over 400bhp. Don't know whether I believe that, because Rovers can be a bit dissapointing. That's scarily quick but something of a handfull I understand.