Go BottomIncreasing door height to fit tractor
 | mathews
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 11 Virginia 
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2003-03-10 50898
I pretty much have settled on a JD 990 tractor, but the ROPS is a couple of inches higher than the garage door openings, and a foldable ROPS is not available (nor can you take off the ROPS). The headers for the doors are 2x8s, and the door width around ten feet. Any thoughts on replacing the headers with three 2/6s rather than the existing two 2x8s? This is a typical stud framed one-and-a half story garage/workshop that's around 12 years old.
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| marty23
Join Date: Posts: 1
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2003-03-10 50901
I bet if you sandwiched 1/2" thick sheet of 5 1/2" steel between your 2x6's you'd have plenty of strength to accommodate that span, without the extra thickness of 3 2x6's. your header should be double 2x8's with 1/2" sheet of plywood to make it the 3 1/2", so this is same thickness. Of course you'll have to drill the steel to bolt the 2x6's together. ....
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| kay
Join Date: Posts: 1
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2003-03-10 50911
What you need for a header depends in a large part on what the header has to hold up. If it is supporting the ends of roof trusses, then plan on something that will handle the load. If it is a non-loadbearing wall (gable end), then not much is needed. Sandwiching the steel plate will help support a lot of load, as well as screwing and gluing the plywood in between the two 2x6's, as well as the plywood sheathing outside and more plywood sheathing inside. Get 10' plywood if that is what your door width is. Avoid joints along the span. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley 
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2003-03-11 50946
Building codes probably apply, so a permit may be needed. We're pretty informal around and everybody knows the building inspector. When we wanted to build a deck, I just asked the inspector what designs he'd approve. He dug out a book and looked up various designs
That seemed like a pretty good way to figure out what works and also be pretty sure that it's going to pass inspection--quick consultation and all for the cost of a $10 permit. The design cost about half of what a building supply store computer thing designed. Some of the books the inspector referred did give details for various types of built-up compared to timber beams for various applications.
In our township, the municipality is responsible for any inspected structure the fails within a year or so, and there's no possible insurance complications. I figure that talking to our inspected saved us a bunch on time and building materials Seemed like a good deal all around.
I'm thinking that it'd be more common for a large garage door to be in a curtain rather than a loaded wall. If so, and there's room above the header, there are probably all sorts of design possibilities that might entirely substitute for a header. If you get stuck for a design and don't need a 10' door, posts could be installed inboard from the existing one to reduce the span (and therefore the header requirement). If your area gets snow and ice, I'd be careful about cutting the clearance too fine.
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| Yerbyra
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 32 Opelika Alabama
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2003-03-11 50947
You could make a ramp to raise front of tractor while entering garage,this will lower ROPS enough and save you alot of work!Just a thought.This is assuming ceiling ht will accomodate ROPS. ....
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 | DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 5116 Northern Nevada
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2003-03-11 50951
Your local building supply should be able to show you some engineered wood beams. Essentially they are many thin layers of glue laminated plywood and they are exceptionally strong. I don't remember all the numbers but I think a 2x4 or a 2x5 can replace a 2x8 lumber number. ....
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 | Billy
Join Date: Oct 1999 Posts: 975 Southeast Oklahoma 
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2003-03-11 50953
Why not take your tractor to a welding shop and have them cut out 3 inches of your ROPS? They could slide another piece of square tubing inside the ROPS and weld it back. It would be as strong as original. That is if the ROPS would still be tall enough to meet the safety feature.
They could even turn it into a folding ROPS, for a little extra money.
Billy ....
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 | Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2003-03-11 50958
I would tend to agree with Mark the strand beam would be the way to go. They were originally an M&B invention.
I guess I should clairify this, it would be the way to go if you don't have any garage doors etc. If you have to replace the doors etc. then it would be much easier to have the ROPs shortened. I recently had to put in 3 doors in my garage/barn and they are not easiest to install. You alway run into problems.
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| Yerbyra
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 32 Opelika Alabama
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2003-03-11 50967
If you were to modify the ROPS,would this violate the warranty and/or liability? ....
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| marty23
Join Date: Posts: 1
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2003-03-11 50993
You can always let some air out of the rear tires!!! ....
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| bullworker
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 22 western mass
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2003-03-11 50995
changing the rops to afolding one is not that hard,i have done a couple of them. its a simple hinge design made with plates and a removeable pin. ....
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| Yerbyra
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 32 Opelika Alabama
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2003-03-12 51017
Mathews,What do you plan to do with your implements?You may just want to build a shed and store all your(and her)stuff!I have a 990,little large for garage. ....
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| mathews
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 11 Virginia
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2003-03-12 51043
Ive got a garage/workshop that has quite a bit of room, but I know I'll be needing an equipment shed. I'm just trying to buy some time on that one. I've got some books on pole buildings, and Monte Burch's book has a fairly straightforward 3 bay equipment shed that could be expanded. I can't imagine getting to the point where I say, you know, I've just got too much storage space and nothing to put in it. Let see, two canoes, two skiffs, a riding mower, a push mower, a rototiller, firewood, boatbuilding lumber, tomato cages, .... And then future tractor implements: rear mount mower, plow, disk, box blade, harrow, auger, .... ....
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| Jim on Timberridge
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 172 La Crosse WI
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2003-03-12 51063
Matthews:
I think your original plan (3x 2x6"'s replacing 2x 2x8"'s) will work, assuming the 2" recouped is enough.
jim ....
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| Jeff Earthwerks Unli
Join Date: Posts: 1
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2003-03-14 51170
I knew a guy who used to park his tall milk delivery truck in his residential home's garage. All he did was cut two "lanes" or paths for the tires into the garage floor.
Aside from that, modifying the ROPS seems the most economical. Probably cost about $400 for a welding shop to do. Seems simple: Four identical brackets, two bolts and pins and some cutting and welding. ....
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 | AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 928 Rio Rancho, NM 87144
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2003-03-17 51321
Three 2X6s are about 10% weaker than a pair of 2X8s. (for the same variety and quality of wood.) Replacing them may work if the 2X8s were not fully loaded, but you will have to have an architect or engineer check it for you. As others have said, building codes may apply. Another alternative might be an engineered beam with top and bottom plates and a plywood center web. This would solve the height issue and could meet your code requirements.
BTW, I am an engineer. ....
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 | Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999 Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2003-03-17 51337
Another way it could be done is with an offset bearing structure. I'm not sure how I'm going to explain this in less than three pages, but here goes. All of the following is a) presuming that your door is NOT on the gable end of the building, and that the roof slopes down to the door from a ridge, and b) it is strictly personal advise and not to be construed as a professional opinion, consult a professional in your area before attempting any structural changes, sorry waiver required.
You can move the load-bearing wall INTO the garage, and 'uphill' if you will, since the rafters, and therefore the load, rises with the roof. Moving the support further in to meet the load at a higher point in the roof will negate the need for such a deep header over the door itself, thus (hopefully) allowing you a little more clearance and allowing you to increase the height of the opening. Tip of the day, if this works and you are able to increase the height of the opening, do NOT buy a new door, simply raise the tracks by the same distance as the opening was increased, then attach an extension of the same size above the top panel, this way the door will still match any others it will just have an aditional section above that opens.
Best of luck. ....
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| kay
Join Date: Posts: 1
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2003-03-17 51347
Murf That's a clever idea and method for gaining door height, as long as the structure above fits your description. You would move the door header up higher, and further into the garage. Probably need posts on each side, or some other structure to hold the header. Very well described, and less than 4 pages! ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-03-18 51371
Yes, that is clever! I think I've done something like that twice but each time it was to rescue buildings. I never would have thought of it as a way to raise a door height.
If I've got the idea right, the idea is to run a beam supported by posts underneath the rafters and wedge the beam against the rafters with posts to the ground. In my cases, the buildings were in such bad shape or so poorly constructed to begin with that the rafters were not level.
My problem was how to get all the rafters in contact with the beam so they all transfer about the same load to the beam. I suppose that custom-cutting notches at the rafter angle into the beam would be ideal but there'd be a lot of work in that beam. I ended up placing the beam far enough below the rafters that I could cut custom length stubs to go between the rafters and beam. I didn't do it but gusset plates on the stubs would improve the design. To raise a door, that approach would mean the beam would have to come further into the garage, which might be desirable. Ideally, it's level across the rafter bottoms and ripping the edge of the beam to the right angle would do the trick.
Another problem I faced in my last rescue was how to keep the beam square on top of the posts and the posts in plumb. I suppose there is building hardware that's designed for the task. Not being an engineer I was never sure how much side force hardware would have to withstand and I probably over-designed it with tie-beams, tresses, cross-bracing and fillets. I have no idea what an engineer would say about my design.
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| Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999 Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2003-03-18 51384
Tom, Kay, (and others) sorry but in my quest for brevity I may have made the description a little too brief for clarity.
The idea is to replicate the existing header, just further inside the structure, and higher up, supported vertically by beams, and braced on a (hopefully) 45 degree angle back further into the structure and also back out to the original wall to prevent the new header from possibly kicking out. The method of attachment is usually to cut wedges out of dimensional lumber (2 x ?'s, depending on roof pitch) which are placed on top of the new header to take up the gap between header and rafter. These wedges are in turn laminated to the header by plywood strips, and joist hangers on top of that, in some areas tornado fastners (hold-downs) may also be required, check your local building code. Do not notch the header or the rafters as this would weaken them, use mechanical fasteners only to join the two components together.
If the beam is true and level and all rafters do not meet it equally, check the structural integrity of the roof itself, all rafters must run in the same plane in order for them to be holding only their proportionate amount of the roof loading, this is the time to fix any other problems.
Best of luck.
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-03-19 51438
Hi Murf. Happy you're back posting!
Your description seems to be pretty much what I did. I'm happy enough that my uneducated sense of what should be done turns out to be somewhat conventional. I toe-nailed in the wedges but hangers and gusset plates (plywood strips) would be better. Even I have some interest in brevity so I'll restrain myself from describing the details, but here might be some interest in rescuing buildings so I will go on a length to outline what I did. Maybe there are better ways.
My last effort was on a typical unequal wall height shed--nothing was holding the tops of the loaded walls together except the rafters. I installed cleats level and at the same height on each loaded wall and then toe-nailed 2x4 tie beams from wall to wall to give me level tie-beams directly below each rafter. I put double 2x8 beams along the length of the shed across the top of the beam (to save headroom). Posts from the tie-beams to the rafters were used on the high rafter side of the beam and cross braced back to the beam. Only cross braces were used on the low side. The cross-bracing wedges the beam to a vertical. Wedges between the beam and rafters were cut a bit over-length, banged in and toe-nailed. My version of remedial roof work was cutting the shorter posts and wedges more over-length than the shorter ones. I toe-nailed the tie beams to the bottom of the beam reasoning that load from the posts to the tie-beams would still transfer to the beams through the nails.
I put jack posts under the beam and jacked it up (keeping the beam level) until there was considerable load on the beam. Finally, I cut 8x8 posts to measured length and installed them plumb under the beam and removed the jack posts. Maybe the design could have been from a more educated perspective, but the shed has been through four seasons of snow-load now and hasn't budged. The main idea of the design was to build a true level and plumb support structure inside the shed and connect it to the structure that is neither level nor plumb.
I do see pro work around here that uses notched beams. There may be some advantage to notches. Over-width timber is used to allow for the notches.
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| CraigC
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 83 Hebron, IN
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2003-03-24 51776
Just one more thought, if you were to take the money it will cost to modify your garage and put it into the diffrence of going from a 990 to a 4000 series with folding rops from the factory where would you come out? Just looking at it from a diffrent angle. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-03-25 51811
Yep, I chuckled when I read Craig's comment. It's easy to get so focused on solving a problem that's presented that alternatives which make the problem irrelevant get missed. ....
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| bushogbob
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 6 Ohio
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2003-03-29 52124
I just shortened the ROPS on mt L2500 by 1 inch to clear the garage door header. It was a two peice ROPS and only took about 3 hours to do. It looks great you can't even tell it was shortened except for an extra hole. ....
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