“New” house has a standard 8x16 brick garage at the top of a concrete sloped drive (I need to work out the incline, its about 40ft long, climbing 10ft). There is a 2-3" transition between the the garage base and the drive. My slightly lowered Mk1 gets in about halfway, then noisily grounds, on the chassis rails (and I think my brand new cat has taken a knock). I suppose I need to sort some planks out, but what would be a long term solution; flatten out the front edge of the garage base, or extra concrete on the drive, to flatten out the transition? Because the garage is at the top of the slope, the car has difficulties just creeping up using the clutch.
Longer term, I might replace the garage; make it a bit wider (can’t go to double) and longer (back of garage is into a hill, so much excavation needed), and get it set back from the top of the slope.
Seems to me that neither extra concrete, nor planks, is going to solve the problem. From the way you’ve described it you’re going to have to bite the bullet and shave the concrete at the point where the uphill slope of the drive meets the presumably flat bit of the garage base. Without a scale drawing, I’d guess measure about 18" to 2 feet in either direction of this join, draw two parallel lines, then excavate back (and re-concrete if necessary) to give a third-angle ‘chamfer’ between the two existing extremes.
Your issue is the level garage base relative to the slope of the path. This make the front of the car drop relative to the back and there is a marginal impact around the middle of the car.
It doesn’t sound too dramatic although obviously caused some damage in the very middle of the car and outriding chassis rails.
You could identify the impact areas and chip off the edge of the garage floor or alternatively raise the garage floor level with slabs, planks, etc to lift the car clear of that edge. Raising the level of the path incline at the appropriate point is the third and probably most difficult option.
Get say 10 600mm x 600mm x 50mm slabs and put 5 in each side of the garage to say 6 inches behind the door and back into the garage for the tyres to run on.
Make a small ramp from back of the door to the slabs.
Therefore you have the middle of the car 50mm in the air, you may need a little bit more height but you would get that from putting down a bed of concrete mix with some grit or small stones below the slabs.
When you have got the height correction sorted then you can just replace the slabs with say 75mm of concrete but with the middle section from the back of the door to say 600 mm in with a slight ramp to stop the low underside bits scraping.
Bit of s suck it and see solution but a solution should be found with some trial and error.
Or make it a 120mm concrete floor increase and put a mid lift scissor lift in there but you will probably run out of height.
If I’ve read your figures correctly you have a 1 in 4 (25%) slope which then joins a level surface - the garage floor - so the problems is the pivot point and raising the garage floor equally from front to back will not solve the problem. As I see it the only real cure is to “soften” the pivot point in some way, and a limiting factor could be the length and height of the garage.
If the garage is only used by the MX5, raising the floor should not be that much of an issue but there may be other things to think about re the short term use of the garage.
The problem is more to do with what SAZ wants to do in the future and not to get in the way of the final solution, therefore some sort of slab or plank solution would work in the short term and would be s good dummy run for a final solution.
My fathers drive is unusable for most cars my MX won’t go up it I once remember one of my Uncle’s knocking off his exhaust he was propper pissed off (quite rightly so I think) I personally dont see the point of a drive or garage you can’t use it has to be rectified or the house not bought. thats almost like not checking if you have wifi and phone signals.
The first photo doesn’t do the steepness of the drive justice - I imagine you tilted the camera when taking it to get the drive and garage in?
Second photo shows a large height adjustment for garage footprint.
If I were in your situation, I would initially work inside the garage to facilitate getting the car in. One person watching the underside of the car as another drives the car very slowly forward into the garage - easier said than done on such a slope so a third person with wheel chocks may be required. Start adding slabs/planks or other means of lifting each front wheel at the point the underside is very close to touching the garage base threshold. You may find that only a small lift is required to clear the threshold completely as the car climbs the drive on its back wheels and gets past the low point of the car in the centre. Planks lengthwise may be best because you could drive along them for as far as possible before adding further lifter(s) on top if required.
It’s a bit like…‘Don’t raise the bridge - lower the river!’
Seriously, I had a similar problem some years ago, and solved it by raising the garage floor and smoothing off the apex of the junction by fitting soft-shouldered kerbing slabs into the excavated slot.
The locally raised garage floor inside - just slabs two thick for the length of the car - meant under-car acess was a lot easier too…(kinda mini-ramp).
Good luck…
Aldi
I would put the front wheels just into the garage and then put ‘ramps’ under the rear wheels and drive forward. This would lift the rear and help with the clearance. Trial and error with various planks would provide a solution as to height required. Decking boards are useful as the height is easy to climb and the width is useable. Once you have the correct gradient both up and down again you can screw them together to form a permanent, easily moveable ramp.
I apologise if this has already been suggested, I did look but as my wife informs me ‘I never look properly’!!!
I had a problem the other way as Richardn. I got in a proper local firm who took the sharp edge off the transition from the slope to the flat pavement and resurfaced the area for a reasonable fee. It was some time ago so do not remember how much. It may be worthwhile getting a quote from a reputable firm for a decent and permanent job instead of messing with bits of wood.
The firm I used were contractors for the local highways who appeared, hit the job and were away within a few hours. I think I had to leave the new tarmac for a while before use but it has been fine now after about seven years. It may not be as expensive as you fear and quotes are free anyway.
No problem with strength if you are worried just reinforce with some 2 x 2 or whatever size of timber across the ramp where there is s gap.
Main problem I can see rather than as a stop gap solution is that someone will fall over them in time and it will get a pain moving them about after a while!
