Ratchet straps through the wheels

Okay, so my Elan has NO good tie-down points under it at all. I need to load it in a container and secure it somehow.

How terrible an idea would it be to loop ratchet straps through the spokes of the wheels and cinch them up? I realize this will put stress on the inside of the wheel where it usually never sees any, but it's supposed to be strong enough to handle a lot of shocks and jolts... right?

Wheels in question:

if there are no tie down points, then how do they tie them down when they ship them from the factory?

I tie my Radical down that way.

Consider that whatever loads are imposed toward the outsides of the wheels on one side of the car are simultaneously applied to the insides of the other side. And, wheels are strong enough to absorb massive force and impact loads applied by striking irregularities at huge wheel speeds. The simple, low forces imposed by strapping down to a trailer are insignificant by comparison.

Would the type of wheel straps that cradle the top part of the wheel/tire not work? Those seem quite solid.

And, of course, you need to consider the fact that the car will still be free to bounce around on its suspension, so be sure there's adequate clearance on all sides.

alex wrote: Would the type of wheel straps that cradle the top part of the wheel/tire not work? Those seem quite solid.

Those would be ideal, but I don't have any of them. And I really doubt I'm going to have time to go all over the place looking for them before my container is delivered Wednesday morning... Stuff like that is absurdly hard to find over here unless you're in the industry.

Clearance shouldn't be a problem... the car is 1.73 m wide and a container is 2.35 m on the inside, so I've got 62 cm to spare. I'm considering removing the door mirrors.

I don't have the first clue what I'm doing here, I've never stuffed a container before. Hopefully I won't make too much of a hash of it.

The professional shippers that moved my WRX used through-the-wheel-style tiedowns. Those wheels never exploded in the two more years I owned it.

It is standard for many cars to be towed that way, including BMW.

Osterkraut wrote: The professional shippers that moved my WRX used through-the-wheel-style tiedowns. Those wheels never exploded in the two more years I owned it.

If they explode now I will know who to blame.

I've used that through-the-wheel method many times without problems. I just transported my 96 Impala SS 1600 miles that way and its fine.

So, you can't get a strap around any of the control arms or the crossmembers? Really?

We've had the tire straps come loose from the car bouncing around.

Everything gets cross-strapped by the axle or the control arms now.

Shawn

MrJoshua wrote:

Osterkraut wrote: The professional shippers that moved my WRX used through-the-wheel-style tiedowns. Those wheels never exploded in the two more years I owned it.

If they explode now I will know who to blame.

Well I mean, they ARE Rotas...

In reply to Trans_Maro:

You don't want to tie that car by the control arms. Looping one strap through each wheel should be fine except for some minor scratching of the finish. To help pervent that I took an old tube sock, cut the toes off and slid the strap through it and moved it to the part of the strap that would touch the wheel. I secured many exotic cars to flatbeds this way and never had a problem. Our biggest concern when loading containers was making sure the furnature didn't fall on the car.

I would tie it down like this

Thanks Wally, that's a great tip. Sounds like you've packed containers before? Do you have any advice on what to do?

I have a bunch of stuff in boxes, no furniture but some of my things are bulky/odd shaped (a ladder and some folding chairs wrapped in plastic for example.) My plan was to load all the boxed/wrapped items into the front 2m of the container, cover it all with a canvas tarp, and then secure the tarp down with a combination of ratchet straps and a rope "web". Then load the car in and tie it down with the other four ratchet straps. Maybe I can use my two big aluminum keyboard cases as wheel chocks...?

No real clue what I'm doing here... I've seen containers packed with elaborate wood scaffolding/compartmentalization, but I don't really have the resources to build that anything like that myself. I have no idea what packing materials the shipping company is sending with the container, if anything. I'm hoping the truck driver will be able to give me some good pointers on how to load it all, but who knows.

Trans_Maro wrote: So, you can't get a strap around any of the control arms or the crossmembers? Really? We've had the tire straps come loose from the car bouncing around. Everything gets cross-strapped by the axle or the control arms now. Shawn

One of the cardinal rules of Lotus ownership is never to stress chassis components in a direction they're not intended to be stressed. Usually they're plenty strong in the axis they need to be, but noodly thin and bendy if tweaked in other ways. I really don't want to unload this thing and have a bunch of warped, impossible-to-replace suspension parts (or find something has bent something else which has bent something else, etc. etc.)

It's not anything like a conventional steel car with great big braces and locaters tying a unibody together...

Cargo load locks like the use in van trailers may be useful. Not terribly expensive either.

or these types.

http://www.awdirect.com/8-point-trailer-flatbed-tie-down-kit-for-use-with-t-slots-38200cs/truck-tie-downs/

Ahh, I get it.

I'd listen to Wally then.

Shawn

You're on the right track. I used to do towing for a company that moved people for the UN. They would bring their car here and back with them, especially from europe. I did several very plain small Opels and Renaults. They would load the house first, secure it with cargo nets and then the car. To chock the wheels they would screw pieces of 2x4 into the floor of the container. The floors are wood so you can secure a lot with deck screws.

Cool. Wally taught me another use for tube socks.

The first time I needed to trailer a 911, I asked a local Porsche shop owner, who also is the PCA tech chair for my region, where the best points to tie it down were. He to me to just go through the wheels. I was concerned about screwing up the alignment, but he said that I wouldn't come close to the cornering forces they see. Now I'm more concerned about scratching the wheels.

How terrible an idea would it be to ship it with the top down? It'll certainly make access easier and might save some damage if something goes wrong with the rest of what I'm packing. Those containers should be pretty well watertight right?

Mmmm... not really. Maybe it's just the ones we used to see around Charleston but the things are known to leak. The guy who owns the Mercedes shop I worked at used to ship wrecked Harleys to Europe and he was always saying how stuff got wet on the trip. Is there any reason you couldn't build a 'crate' (like a wooden roll cage, sorta) which would get screwed to the floor of the container?

Yeah, I've rethought the top-down plan. I have a tarp to go over the car and another one to go over my stuff, but those don't always work 100% for keeping water out either.

Crap, I have a lot of clothing and electronics packed in cardboard boxes. I've been going on the assumption that the container will be reasonably waterproof, which is what the shipping co. told me (of course they did.) A few drips when it rains aren't going to bother me but if it starts pouring in like Niagara Falls or scooping seawater in from the bottom then I'm screwed.

I can't build a wooden scaffolding, I don't have time to get all the materials nor tools nor any way to haul lots of 2x4s & plywood around... I'm doing this all myself which makes things difficult. The moving company have assured me there will be some materials for securing things delivered with the container, but we'll see what that means. I am going to chock the wheels with some sturdy wooden blocks & maybe I'll be able to block them in from the sides too. That would satisfy a lot of my anxiety... I didn't realize the container floor would be wood that I can screw things into, that simplifies the planning quite a bit.

Can you get some big plastic bags to put over the cardboard boxes? As in, slide box into bag, then tie off bag?

Strapping through your wheels will be fine.

However, you haven't said what you intend to attach the other end of the strap to. If you are thinking about screwing down a ring, I'd re-think it.

Screws aren't strong enough to resist the weight of the car.

If you screw blocks to the floor (as wheel chocks) then brace them to the container (like long 2x4's from the chocks to the front and rear of the container) it would be better.

99 times out of 100 the containers are dry. Sometimes they have holes in the roof.

Is it a 40' container or a 20'? Shipping overseas?

A 40' container is really big. I pack them every day. I could pack my 4 bedroom house (7 people) in about half of one. I'm thinking your car is about 12' overall length. That leaves 28' x 8' high. Unless you've got a family the size of a major metropolitan Mexican city, I think you will be fine. You should not need a scaffold.