Arrival

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Major System Category: Misc
Task: Delivery via Stewart Transport & Inventory
Parts: Basic kit plus optional parts ordered April 2012
Prerequisite Tasks: See planning phase
Additional Costs: N/A
Time Requirement: 1 hour
Date Started: June 29, 2012
Date Completed: June 29, 1012

Stewart Transport is an independent entity from Factory Five. They have delivered over 11,000 kits, so they're experienced. After you call them up and pay your money, their driver will pick up your kit on the next run. This can take 7 to 10 days after the kit is ready to ship.

The build site.

Next, you will get a call from the driver. He'll give you a date and ask if that's okay. If you're like me, you're going to clear the calendar (I started this process 14 months ago).

First shot of the GTM being winched out of the truck.

The night before delivery, the driver calls again and we settle on a time. (In my case: noon.) The driver told me he was about 250 miles from my house. I figure this is roughly Madison, Wisconsin. I know this road well, so allowing for summer road construction noon sounds about right.

She looks fast just hanging there.

I need four jack stands and some kind of jack. I have a four post lift, four jack stands, an inline jack and two floor jacks. I think I've got things covered. The plan is to roll the GTM onto the lift, raise it slightly, jack up her up and set her down on the jack stands.

She's resting on jack stands in the garage under the lift.

Things didn't go according to plan. The cart they have to roll the GTM into your shop or garage isn't wide enough to roll up a four post lift. It might work with a 1 or 2 post lift with extended arms. We rolled her into the garage. I used a floor jack to raise her up and we deployed jack stands under the car.

There were a few boxes too. My shipment included 22 boxes and/or pieces (e.g. roof scoop. splitter) and 1 box back ordered.

Stewart Transport is definitely the way to go. The driver was great! Plus they have the trucks and equipment to get your car where you want it.

Garage Prep III

This is the final phase for garage prep prior to ordering the GTM chassis. I installed a Swisstrax floor at the build site. In the post entitled Synergy I discussed Swisstrax flooring. If you decide to install a floor like this, list Traci as your sales person. She has handled 4 orders for me, and they all arrived perfect.

Finished product. The Maple Grove build site for the GTM.

Neither the Swisstrax floor or the DirectLift car lift are requirements for the GTM. They are both designed to make the build space more usable. The Swisstrax floor is virtually indestructible. It doesn't mar from jack stands or ramps. It doesn't come apart when a car drives on/off repeatedly. It doesn't fade under bright sun (and South Carolina has plenty of that). It doesn't scratch your painted parts.

DiamondTrax tile.

Each tile is a mixture of polymers and rubber, and each tile has a compression strength of 5120 psi. This floor is more forgiving than concrete, and I have no illusions - things will get dinged and nicked during the build. Hopefully, the Swisstrax floor will mitigate some of my clumsiness.

This is the bottom of a tile. You can see it is designed to handle a significant load. In my case, the weight of the lift is dispersed to four load points and the weight of any car I might put on there is equally distributed to those load points. The lift weights 1700 lbs and the heaviest car I might put up there is 4000 lbs. That comes down to 1600 lbs per load point - well within spec for the titles.

I chose the DiamondTrax pattern, because it provides grip and prevents things from just wandering away. It is available in fourteen colors. Once you've selected the product and have measurements, go to the floor designer and build your floor. The designer is a HTML WYSIWYG tool. When you're satisfy request a quote. Get the estimate, pay the bill and wait for FedEx truck to arrive.

Th edge pieces are about 2 inches wide and provide a nice ramp edge to the floor.

Assembly is a snap. The tiles fit together per the plan you submitted. For tools you need some gloves, knee pads, rubber mallet and a cutting tool (I'd suggest the Dremel Multi Max or one of its clones). I finish off the job with end pieces to give me a tapered edge.

Garage Prep II

Last July (before I wandered to South Carolina for grand kids and stuff), I went to the Cars & Coffee event at the autoplex. This is a wonderful facility located in the western suburbs of Minneapolis. One of the garage owners was kind enough to talk to me about his lifts. He had two Direct Lift four post lifts rated to 8000 pounds. He had a Corvette on each lift and some other cars underneath. (Once you see the Corvettes, what else is there to talk about?)

Front posts will end up against the garage wall.

My garage is deep and it has a 10 foot ceiling. The Boxster is 45 inches tall and the GTM is 42 inches tall. I don't have a lot of room to work with, so I need to leverage the space I have. A four post lift does not have to be bolted to the floor. This is very convenient, especially if you end up moving it.

Rear posts.

My major concern was clearing the garage door hangers. The lift does me no good if it interferes with the garage door. So I spent considerable time measuring the garage, and checking to see if I cleared the garage door. I marked the approximate post locations with chalk, then put wheel chocks as markers (I have a very understanding wife).

Installed and in place.

The lift weighs 1700 pounds. Benco (the Direct Lift distributor for the Midwest) delivered and installed the lift. It was painless. The installers told me that they have put lifts in smaller spaces than my garage, and it wasn't unusual to see one of these in a residential setting.

I also ordered an in line jack for the lift. This is a hydraulic jack that can extend to the car's jacking points and lift vehicle while on the lift. There is an additional plate that will support the car's weight where I use for tools, jack stands and supplies. In addition, there are plastic drip plates that can be spread so your super cool sports car doesn't do anything unpleasant to your other super cool sports car parked below.

I have the system plugged into the same 110 VAC outlet used for the garage door opener. It is a closed system that operates on hydraulics and inch thick cables. It doesn't go up and down real fast, but would you really want to be lifting your pampered petrol burner really fast?

These ramps are detachable. They work fine for low profile vehicles, and my Boxster with the  GT3 style front is very low profile.

The plan is to put the GTM on the lift. Use the bay underneath to park the Boxster or the Camry. Before the GTM arrives, I hope to get the Swisstrax floor installed.

I can take the lift to maximum height with the Boxster on top, and I can stand under the car without feeling like I'm about to smash my noggin on something.

The four post lift is not a requirement for the build. However, I think it makes the project more doable. I have spent the last couple of years flat on my back, working on the Corvette and Boxster using a combination of Race Ramps and jack stands. It was extraordinary to examine the bottom of the car from this perspective. Things that seemed incredibly awkward now are very straight forward and easy to accomplish. I need that edge to help make the GTM project a success.