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'shrinking' my 90 to fit in the garage...


jackmac

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I think a few of you have been in the same boat as I find myself in, and wondered if you could pass on a bit of advice. I'm looking at renting some garage space which is perfect, but the top of the door is about 7cm too low to fit my land rover in there :angry2:

Changing the door etc is not an option, my truck has simply got to become shorter! Obvious answer is buy some small wheels, but that's the last resort.

Is it possible to put a ratchet strap around chassis & axles to compress the springs? Or maybe even just buy some spring compressors? It's the back that needs to go down, otherwise i could have used front winch onto axle

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My grandad had this with an old bedford van, he dug the floor out.

Could you put a small winch on the back of the truck to pull it down?

Or have something heavy that you put in?

Or have 'parking' wheels?

Or fit air shocks?

Or rent somewhere bigger?

Is it just to go through the door? If so you could make a pneumatic ram that you clipped on to pull the back end down then take it off once it's in. It'd be a great anti theft feature. I had a couple of huge pneumatic rams but I've just scrapped them :(

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I've used a combination of ratchet straps and reduced tyre pressures with good results before.

Old steel LR rims are cheap on ebay, you could get some knackered car tyres with a small sidewall from your tyre place and fit them if it is going to be in there for a while.

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Looking at your picture you have quite large tyres on, grab a couple of disco rims with their standard tyres on and fit those to the back and drive in, you could even let the air out a bit for even more clearance. People are always scrapping discos you'd get wheels and tyres for next to nothing.

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What about letting the tyres down a bit?

I don't think that will give me enough? Would have thought you could only get a few cm from letting tyres down unless you let them go completely flat, which can't do them any good when you've got weight on them?

Looking at your picture you have quite large tyres on, grab a couple of disco rims with their standard tyres on and fit those to the back and drive in, you could even let the air out a bit for even more clearance. People are always scrapping discos you'd get wheels and tyres for next to nothing.

That's a point, i only need to do the back wheels. That's not as much of a pain as having to change all 4...

Pull-down winches for an easy life :)

Time you had a rear winch to go with the front one ^_^

But if it dislocates on the back, I think jack it over and pull the rear springs for a cheap option?

Got the fitting for a rear winch... don't tempt me :P I want something that doesn't take an hour to move it in and out of the garage, it won't be in there for months at a time without moving (especially if the weather gets bad)

Maybe a pair of discovery wheels are the way forward, since I don't have a compressor at the moment to re-inflate the tyres after letting them down

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I have the same problem

When it's open my up-and-over garage door only has 6'2" under it, I have to duck under the handle in the middle.

My 90 has standard springs but 35" tyres so is far from going under, if I nose the 90 in I get as far as the door touching the roof just above the windscreen and there's not enough head room to open the bonnet fully

In the past I have fitted an old set of 205's on standard rims and let them down flat, even then there's some rubbage as you drive under the door and with flat tyres it becomes impossible to steer - positioning becomes pot luck

This last time I couldn't be bothered to change the wheels so just aired down the 35's as much as I dared at the back, and then let the fronts down a bit too but enough to retain the ability to steer :)

I piled the set of 205's in the back for ballast too

There was some serious scrapeage - the door ended up being bowed up about 4", and I had to drive all the way in to get the door back down because of the arc it moves in, but in all it was fairly painless and caused no real damage, just more scratches to the 90's roof

My workshop compressor is still out of action so I reinflated my tyres with a tiny 12v compressor which came in an emergency tyre repair kit out of a modern car which has no spare wheel. It has a low duty cycle which only allows it to run for ten minutes in an hour but that was enough to do one tyre at a time whilst I pottered about doing other jobs

3743A34B-C0D9-4F4F-8F49-F1D1E6D789FD_zps

BBD67DF7-CF79-4848-876F-697514EBD5DB_zps

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Careful using ratchet straps. Strapping it down is fine but releasing them is not exactly controlled the pink bits can get shorter.? something like a trailer hand winch might be more controlled.

Mike

That's a point. Ratchet straps move down the 'good idea list'

I have the same problem

When it's open my up-and-over garage door only has 6'2" under it, I have to duck under the handle in the middle.

My 90 has standard springs but 35" tyres so is far from going under, if I nose the 90 in I get as far as the door touching the roof just above the windscreen and there's not enough head room to open the bonnet fully

In the past I have fitted an old set of 205's on standard rims and let them down flat, even then there's some rubbage as you drive under the door and with flat tyres it becomes impossible to steer - positioning becomes pot luck

This last time I couldn't be bothered to change the wheels so just aired down the 35's as much as I dared at the back, and then let the fronts down a bit too but enough to retain the ability to steer :)

I piled the set of 205's in the back for ballast too

There was some serious scrapeage - the door ended up being bowed up about 4", and I had to drive all the way in to get the door back down because of the arc it moves in, but in all it was fairly painless and caused no real damage, just more scratches to the 90's roof

My workshop compressor is still out of action so I reinflated my tyres with a tiny 12v compressor which came in an emergency tyre repair kit out of a modern car which has no spare wheel. It has a low duty cycle which only allows it to run for ten minutes in an hour but that was enough to do one tyre at a time whilst I pottered about doing other jobs

3743A34B-C0D9-4F4F-8F49-F1D1E6D789FD_zps

BBD67DF7-CF79-4848-876F-697514EBD5DB_zps

Not my garage, so I can't afford any damage at all (especially as there is a chance that the building might be listed...). Does airing the tyres right down then driving a few metres on them cause any damage?

Just run the front winch right under and up to the rear crossmember? Maybe with a ptfe slider under/around the axle cases.

Will.

This sounds like it could be a good idea... minimal effort too which is always good! Could always give it a go and splice the winch rope back together when if it goes wrong. A few old plastic milk bottles sliced open would wrap round the axles well enough and protect the rope.

Any reason not to do this??

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ive got a set of ****ed disco rims you can have for the scrap price and postage if you want?

I know quite a few folk round my way scrapping discos that would give me wheels for a couple of beer tokens, so that would probably be easier. Thank you for the offer though!!

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I've heard some Ifor Williams trailer wheels are LR bolt pattern but much smaller wheels.

Or run it on scrap rims with no tyres (or a set of worn out very-low-profile car ones dug from the scrap heap at the local tyre place).

Or look at Daan's 88 and lower the roof of the truck.

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another vote for some rims; you only need two, so not a biggy. Alternatively, from your avatar, it looks like you have an external cage; this adds quite a bit of height which you could change to an external/internal cage if you wanted to, mine does not add any height. Also, drop the ride height a bit?

daan

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Rims plus a good rattle gun, very quick and ultimately safer than most options listed above.

That is an excellent excuse to get a nice rattle gun...

Tonk used to winch his truck down on the suspension in order to make it low enough to get into his garage.

My only concern would be the rope snapping, and thus me damaging the timber surrounding the door! I'm moving into the garage this weekend, so I'll see how close I can get by letting down the tyres. In the meantime, best splice my spare rope back together just in case...

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