After carefully considering a few options I decided to purchase a set of hub stands from Flyin’ Miata. Their stands are relatively inexpensive and include a few very interesting features. The Flyin’ Miata stands consist of a welded steel base and adjustable “toe bar” coupled to a pivoting hub plate. The stand sits on four ball transfers and supports 1000 lbs.
The hub stands sit nicely on top of my race scales and the guards I built for the wheel stands prevent them from rolling off on to the floor.
The image below shows the Lotus sitting on hub stands on top of the wheel stands. The ball transfer bearings and pivoting hub stand allow the suspension of the car to “settle” into place on the wheel stands as the car is lowered on to the scales. The car moves around very freely on top of the scales… so freely it is kind of scary!
The welded base of the Flyin' Miata stands is a fairly compliant structure. When the weight of the car is applied to the stand... the base twists ever so slightly allowing the four balls to contact the plate. With the structure "pre-loaded" in this manner all four balls come in contact with the surface (sharing the load) while the stand is supported in a way that is rigid in the directions that matter. I don't know if the Flyin' Miata folks purposely designed it this way or if it's a happy accident but is actually works very well. The limits of this kinematic structure are determined by the flatness of the aluminum plate. That is... if the plate were to have a "hole" greater than the motion allowed by the base one of the balls would come out of contact.
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