Garage Lifts

[Steve_S]

In my search for a small enough lift to fit in my garage and still allow work space, I came across this amazing-looking lift. Anyone have any experience with anything like it?

Normally sells for $3800 but I found it HERE for $3000, free shipping! It's a lot of money but it's the ultimate solution!

Here are the dimensions

 

[Bruce Bowker]

Most likely you will have to dig a rather large (huge) hole in your garage and put a solid, really solid concrete (professional quality) footing and some really strong bolts (studs) in that footing.

I still lean toward four post lifts. Far far easier and does the same as above for about the same price or even less considering the footing costs.

As an example https://www.e-autolifts.com/heavyweights/heavyweights.html

 

[Steve_S]

I have a serious real estate problem in the garage which is why this one is attractive. I have found a couple 4-post lifts with very small footprints, and I have considered contacting the manufacturers to see if they can cut the runways and crossbraces shorter to make the whole thing even smaller.

 

[Bruce Bowker]

Looks like the one you pictured is a much smaller footprint. Can you get a substantial footing poured in you garage?

 

[Steve_S]

With money I can get anything! Anyone have some extra I can borrow?

Here's the smallest 4-post lift I could find...
https://www.americasprideonline.com/autolifts/AmPro/PP-4.shtml

 

[Bruce Bowker]

That one is one foot longer but 4 inches narrower. Is the length and/or width the problem?

 

[tony barnhill]

I also want a 4-post lift but find all the ones out there too wide for our LBC's...I've contacted varous manufacturers to see if they'd modify width...all I ever got was 'no'...lemme know how you fare.

 

[Bruce Bowker]

With only 38 inches between runways an LBC would have to fit I would think.

Bruce

 

[Steve_S]

Length AND width is the problem. My garage is 20x22 and not very tall. There's a lot packed in there and not much I can do about it. We have 4 cars and a motorcycle at the house

 

[Dale]

This may be out of y'alls league, but I bought a Qwik-Lift for $1089.00 (unpainted) from the manufacturer in Broken Arrow, OK. I'm very satisfied with it for the price, though I was prompted to buy a 3 1/2 Ton floor jack to make the best use of it.($89.95 at Checker) It is not totally portable, but it was easy to arrange so that I can park on it and not take up much more room than the car by itself.

 

[tony barnhill]

I also have a Qwik-Lift...love it...have my '70 GT on it right now while I'm running plumbing & wiring & all other work underneath

...still want a narrow 4-post lift....most of them have the post 8' feet apart & that eats up lots of garagte space when the car is only 55" wide!

 

[Steve_S]

I would love a Quik-Lift but it would do nothing for my parking problem. In fact it would make things worse!

 

[racing girl]

Steve,
We have exactly the same garage size as you do, and four cars too! Our solution was a Perfect Park 7000 from Lifts Unlimited. Believe me we looked at everyone out there before settling on this, we even drew the outlines of all the lifts on the garage floor! Our Ginetta G15 has a tiny wheel base and sits comfortably on it. The things that swung it for us were the fact that we could put either the British cars on it or the minivan and work on them comfortably and safely; all the pully's and cables are inside the columns, and there's a dust cover too; the unit pulls centrally down the columns and is therefore incredibly stable (it's not bolted down, and doesn't need to be) - from what I remember of our research the others didn't work in this way, they stress the columns which causes the top of the columns to want to pull inwards during lifting. Not only is this more taxing on the components but also makes the lift very unstable. They will also supply the ramp with just about any type of power setup you can think of, which was great for us, as we won't always be living in the States (we're English). They usually have a sale in the fall too.

Not the cheapest out there, but definitely one of the best engineered solutions available for the "hobbyist/collector". We're very glad we bought it.

Here are some real life "action" shots!

RG /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/england.gif

 

[BRIAN TOWNE]

RG: That is a great site. I phoned them and they have an Import Buster Model ( to compete with import take-off's) same specs as their Econo model for $2095.00 That seems to me to be a great price. 7000lb. 92inches between the posts and it is portable. I may have to give it some very serious thought. Thanks /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif Brian /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/canpatriot.GIF

 

[Steve_S]

That is indeed a good find. Their smallest lift is slightly smaller than the smallest 4-post I found. Not as space-saving as the single-post lift but a good alternative. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[tony barnhill]

For me 92" between posts is too wide...I want to get the width between the posts down to 6' or less!

 

[Steve_S]

The Econo Lift at the link RG provided has dimensions of 75 x 148.5 between posts.

 

[tony barnhill]

No, the 75" is just the 'bed'...the outside dimension is almost 98" wide...I'm looking for 72" outside dimension or smaller

 

[Steve_S]

Oh, gotcha. I'd love to find one as well. I don't see that it would be a problem to modify a lift to be smaller, but it would require a heavy-duty welder. You would have to cut the crossmembers and reweld them narrower, then cut away some of the runway surface to widen the under-car access area again. I've considered it.

 

[Steve_S]

Yikes! I hate when this happens (and hopefully it's an older model!)

https://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=343803