Temporarily raising ride height for transport

[Eriedor]

I'm in the process of booking transport to ship my Seven over to West Coast of Canada and have come up against a problem. The best method of transport is by rail once it's docked in Halifax but the transport company won't touch cars with less than 6" ground clearance. 

I'm not sure what exactly mine is right now (I'm currently in Canada, car in Cornwall) but I imagine it's barely 3" clearance. Given I know very little about suspension, what's my options? adjustable dampers won't get that high on max length setting I assume? I know there's transport foam car manufacturers put in suspension which would increase height as well but can't find a retailer for that.

Ideas? 

[revilla]

I think you're going to need a combination of several small height increases to get where you need to be. If the sump is the lowest point, you may be able to gain some height by raising the engine? I'm thinking of temporarily packing the engine mounts with large washers. Support and lift the engine with a trolley jack under the sump while packing out the mounts one at a time. But if you raise the engine significantly you'll have clearance issues and need to raise or remove the bonnet at some point.

[SM25T]

The big adventure .... drive it !!

[Jonathan Kay]

Have you asked the company for their advice?

Does it have to be drivable? At anything above walking speed?

...

If you can't get the height as Andrew suggests then how about giant wheels? Or dollies?

Jonathan

[Ed White]

If its not going to be driven make some larger diameter plywood wheels?  or fit some larger diameter wheels. Anything ford will fit, mondeo, focus etc?

[SM25T]

Can't be too big or they will foul the wings or stays. Don't imagine railroad workers would push a car ... needs to be driven in/on ?

[ScottR400D]

Can't you get it crated and ship like that?

[aerobod - near CYYC]

Remove the rear wings and front wings and stays, use some 15" steel wheels from a breakers yard with the Ford 4x108mm bolt pattern, fit with some worn out 235/75-15 SUV tyres (common in Canada on old SUVs and pickups). This will increase the ride height 79mm over the stock height with 195/50-15 tyres. If you already have 15" wheels, then just getting some old tyres and swapping them on will work.

If you get a roll bar tyre rack, you can put the stock wheels and/or tyres on there and strap the wings on the back of the car and/or put some in the passenger seat wrapped in old blankets or similar.

Take photos to rival James May's off-road Caterham

[Eriedor]

- Lots of small increases may do it, I like the idea of packing up the engine mounts a bit.

- The car does have to be driveable but only at low speed, I'm going to try and rig the car so it can't be hooned about and only goes ~10-15mph max.

- The larger wheels is a good idea but need to check with transport company if the roll bar tyre rack is ok. Might be able to sneak the wings in my luggage when I fly back to Canada. 

Crating is definitely an option as well but it's a much more expensive alternative to it going by train. Last quote was £6.5k Southampton to Vancouver by container compared to Southampton -> (£750) Halifax -> (~£1000) Vancouver. The reason its much cheaper is they don't do Roll on Roll off shipping to Vancouver, but they do to Halifax and that's much cheaper regardless of the distance differences.

[aerobod - near CYYC]

One thing I would look out for in train transport is whether it will be put it in a fully closed rail car, as open ones will be very hard on a Caterham, depending on the weather and time of year. It will be dusty, possibly salty air if in winter and plenty of rail dust that can leave iron dust embedded in the paint (car manufacturers use full body wraps on new cars to protect them).