On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 07:32:24 -0500, Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:

_ fired this volley in
:

One of the projects involves both re-doing the garage and lifting a
ford 4-cyl motor out of a car. There's a fellow selling an I-beam
locally, 13 feet long, 8 inches deep, 4 inches wide (no web
thickness
specified). This would span the garage nicely - could I rely on it
to
not bend if I hook up a hoist to the centre and lift that motor?
Supported on the ends only...


I don't have my blue manual handy, but unless that thing is a brake-
formed sheet metal beam, it'll probably handle the car, engine and all.
In that size, it's gotta run at least 11-lb per foot.

Your assignment is to get the beam mounted in such a way so that it
cannot twist _at_all_ when loaded. Probably the best way to do that is
to weld the ends to some substantially larger mounting plates onto which
A-frame legs would attach.

Get a trolley for that size beam, and you'd have a nice gantry crane.

LLoyd

My father once arrived at a house fire driving the fire truck. The house
was located across a stream from the road, with an obviously owner-built
bridge between him and the house. So he set his right-seat guy out to
take a look to see if the bridge was sturdy enough.

"Wow! It's got 12 inch I-beams under there!"

Well, that's gotta be stout enough for ten fire trucks, right? So off he
goes, and in the middle of the stream the bridge sags badly. It's still
passable, but it's obviously ruined.

After the fire he goes and looks at the bridge. There are the 12" I-
beams -- on their sides, by design.

--
http://www.wescottdesign.com