I’m looking for recommendations on how to best, and most cost-effectively, deal with the need to remove tire friction and suspension bind prior to corner-weighing my car in my particular situation. I have a scissor lift in my garage, and my car permanently sits on a set of ramps I’ve built to allow it to clear the lift. I’ve built a set of crib blocks, and have added a set of homemade leveling feet to four of them to allow the car to be leveled prior to doing an alignment or corner balance. With the blocks stacked onto my ramps, my car is elevated a comfortable 2’ or so, allowing me to easily get under the car with the weight of the car on its tires. But to make adjustments to my car’s ride height (I have coilovers) or alignment, I need to lift the car, so when I let it back down on the scales, the suspension will bind due to the friction of the tires. Roll-off levelers are insanely expensive, and I don’t have room for them on my ramps, so that’s out. Would the trick of sticking an adhesive backed vinyl floor tire onto the scales, and another one face down on top of the one stuck to the scales with a film of hydraulic jack oil, do the trick? I’m thinking of taking a 1' square piece of flat metal, gluing a piece of sandpaper to one side, and sticking a vinyl tile to the other, to serve as the means to allow the tires to relax outward. The sandpaper side would face the tire, and of course the tile side would slide against the tile stuck to the scale, with a film of oil between the tiles.
One thing that concerns me is the scales I'm thinking of getting (https://www.amazon.com/Proform-67650-Vehicle-System-4-Scale/dp/B001P29YBS ) have a textured surface, and don't look like they would take well to having a piece of tile stuck to them. In other words, it really looks like they're intended to be used with roll-off platforms. Also, they're pretty narrow at 9", which sounds a little precarious in terms of allowing much sideways sliding. But they're significantly cheaper than Longacre or Intercomp, and they've actually gotten great reviews.
I really want to stick with my plan of using my lift to raise and lower the car from/onto the scales because of the convenience. Any clever ideas as to how to accomplish this without spending an arm and a leg? Thanks.
Set the scales on a pair of vinyl tiles that have grease between them ? They should slide sideways pretty readily, I would think.
I have tried a lot of things and the most effective way of eliminating friction is commercial floor tiles with oil between them. Bonus tip, these tiles have a smooth side and a slightly rougher side. Put the smooth sides together. Once you have a car on top of lubed tiles it's slicker than ice. You can push it around with very little effort. Kinda scary really! Unfortunately this method also makes a mess and the tiles absorb oil/grease over time which means you;ll have to reapply every time.
freetors said:
I have tried a lot of things and the most effective way of eliminating friction is commercial floor tiles with oil between them. Bonus tip, these tiles have a smooth side and a slightly rougher side. Put the smooth sides together. Once you have a car on top of lubed tiles it's slicker than ice. You can push it around with very little effort. Kinda scary really! Unfortunately this method also makes a mess and the tiles absorb oil/grease over time which means you;ll have to reapply every time.
I've tried using ceramic tiles in the past, but the tiles kept breaking. But I was using conventional ceramic home tiles; what do you mean by commercial floor tiles? In GRM's video on DIY alignments, they used vinyl tiles with hydraulic jack oil between them, and a co-worker of mine uses the same technique. But vinyl tiles don't appear to be all that slick. Where do you get your commercial tiles? Thanks.
With your leveling feet, you can adjust for this: maybe just put the tiles under one side? Then you don’t have to worry about the whole car sliding over and off your stands.
In reply to Cloud9...68 :
I meant just the typical floor tiles. I guess they're vinyl? Maybe linoleum. I never really read the box.
dculberson said:
With your leveling feet, you can adjust for this: maybe just put the tiles under one side? Then you don’t have to worry about the whole car sliding over and off your stands.
This!!!!! You will need to be very careful of this if you put slip plates under the car with it up in the air on stands.
I've been using the vinyl tiles with oil between as well and would endorse this method. They do slide surprisingly well, so you want to set the car down very gently. I had a semi sketchy moment the other evening when I accidently let the jack down a little more quickly than I intended, had to pick the car back up and recenter it. I think having the scissor lift will really help you though, since you will be able to drop all four corners evenly. I'm just using a floor jack and doing one side or end at a time.
Those scales are definitely too narrow to have the slip occur on top of them, that sounds way sketchy to me. Put the scales on top of your slip plates and maybe build a "fence" around them to contain excessive movement.
Thanks for all the replies. I did a little more searching, and have decided to go with these scales instead of the ones linked above:
https://www.amazon.com/ProForm-67644-7000lb-Wireless-Scale/dp/B01ETY2W44
They're much wider, at 15" x 15", and have flat tops, to which I could easily adhere a vinyl tile. They're only $100 more than the narrow scales, and are wireless. Seems like a no-brainer.
