[jpiper]

Hey, here is one for the "hardened" Opel fellar's (or ladies). I am wondering if anyone knows what the weight distribution of the Opel GT w/1.9L is on the front and rear wheels? I would like to determine roughly where the center of gravity is in reference to the front of the vehicle. I am supposing you are now asking yourself "why in the heck does he want to know that?" Well since it is about -20 deg C ( -68 deg F) here today it is too cold to be out in the garage and besides being a single car garage there is not much room to work on the GT when you have a snowblower, shovels, kids sliding gear and other normal garage items crammed in there. So I started thinking about a discussion I had with a friend awhile ago about my wanting to attempt (for the first time) to rebuild my 1.9L engine. I explained the room issue and the fact that the engine would have to be dropped out the bottom. We came up with a conclusion that 2 full car length ramps would best suit my needs (didn’t want to place the car on stands due to immobility aspect). The twist is he described a set of ramps he had once seen that when you drive the car up on the ramp it would then “teeter” forward leveling out with the ground and giving you plenty of height to work under the full length. Sounds good, but can it be done? Hence my question of trying to determine the CofG which I think we will have to know. Of course this is just a fun concept on paper at this point to play around with. Anybody now the weight values or seen ramps with this design before? What are your thoughts?

 

[jpiper]

After reading JGard18's post today and "hand -raulically" figuring out the conversion of degrees F to degrees C (calculator was upstairs), I realized that I made a "digital" malfunction with the calculator on my conversion in this post. It should read -4 deg F not -68 deg F. Man that is cold even for us Canucks!

 

[jpiper]

Keith;
Thanks for the info, and since I wasn't getting any responses to the post I figured I might as well insert something myself. Will keep the info in mind for future reference.

RallyBob;
I really had you "racer guys" in mind when I placed this post because I was thinking maybe you utilized C of G calculations in setting up your suspensions/car handling. Am I thinking too far out there?

 

[jpiper]

Rallybob/19693SGTEOPEL
While I was looking for some info in my filing cabinet for my son's project, low and behold in my Opel folder I found a photo copy of a 1969 Road & Track Road Test article on the Opel GT. I didn't even remember I had such an item. Anyway, 19693SGTEOPEL you were pretty close with your "guess-timate". The values quoted (w/driver) are 54 front/46 rear. I have placed a copy of the scanned image in my album on site and if anyone is interested I can also email the pic. Thanks guys.

 

[jpiper]

I re-sent another pic in JPEG format but because I had to reduce the size of the pic in order to obtain the file limit size I am not sure of the how the pic quality will turn out. To boot it was a photo copy so the quality wasn't that good to start with. I can send you the TIFF file (254 KB) or re-try another scan if you want a better pic. Send me a private email and include your address if you are interested.
Thanks to Oldopelguy for the helpful hints. When this project moves from the conceptual stage to design and eventually fabrication stages I will be sure to post some pics.

 

[jpiper]

Gary;
I will try to get a better scan and then try to enhance it some with PaintShopPro7. Will send it once I have it done. Right now I have to get back to texturing a ceiling in the soon to be new computer room.