This is my week for new "goodies"... the saratoga top... and now my new lift. First - thank you VERY much to the FFIC guys who came over to help with the install... and a particular thanks to Pizzaman (Chris) who allowed me to come over to his house and check out his install!! First, me and my nephew built the ramps (the clearance on the lift is too high to allow the car to simply drive over it...) Here's an action shot of Zach grinding down some bolts... and a couple of pics of the unassembled ramps (made from 4 pressure treated 4x4's) Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Then we overlapped and bolted together (2) 8 foot 4x4's to give us the length we needed... and covered them with rubber flooring from Home Depot... end result looks like this: The flags are from Walmart and are for kid's bicycles... covered with self-sealing pipe insulators... Image Unavailable, Please Login
Then the guys from FFIC helped me move the lift into place... (again, thanks guys!!) Here are some shots with the car on the lift... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
This lift is THE best thing I've ever purchased for my garage... I bought it from http://www.asedeals.com/mid_rise_lift.html - they had a great price!!
Eric, Thats one hell of a cool lift you got there, this gotta be the perfect solution for those narrow garages. The price was also acceptable. Thanx for posting these pics m8!
Excellent job Eric! It was great to have you over the house my friend. I have to swing by some Sunday and check it out. Chris
Nice job! I'm doing something similar this week. I like the corner flag idea with the side boards. Guess I have to buy more lumber! One major observation - It appears from your photos that the center of the scissor lift (yellow line) is well forward of the car's CG (center of gravity) (red line). The CG is probably at or near the the jack points. With a rear engine and most of the weight in the back should we be concerned about this? Maybe the MD-6XP is designed for front engined vehicles primarily. Should we be loading rear engined cars on the lift in the reverse direction? Safety is really important. Opinions?? Image Unavailable, Please Login
After seeing pictures of a couple of these in Fchatters' garages, I'm seriously considering one myself. My concern is getting it into the garage. From what I've read, the freight company will only dump it at your curb, and even that requires an additional charge. At a thousand pounds, I don't really want to be moving this thing down my slightly sloped driveway. How did you manage getting it into the garage?
I could spin the lift around without too much effort... Good catch on the center-of-gravity... I could, of course, just back up a little
I just spoke with a Bend-Pak rep and he definitely recommended loading rear engined cars with the lift reversed since you want the CG as close to the center of the scissor as is possible. I'm going to order the lift with an extra 10' of hydraulic hose so that I can still put the control unit at the front of the car. I really don't want to see this to happen to anyone: Image Unavailable, Please Login
I rented a U-Haul trailer w/ ramp ($25/day) and had them load it into the trailer (they shipped it to a freight warehouse) w/ a fork-truck. Then, once home, I pulled the trailer into my garage... tied a rope to the pallet and to an anchor point in the garage (one of the support beams) - and then slowly pulled the truck forward and the pallet slid nicely down the ramp. Then I just unpackaged the lift... assembled it... I was able to move it around the garage by myself (but needed help moving it out of the garage to get it between the ramps).
Thank you very much! For those that are interested, send me a PM and I'll send you more exact details on how to build the ramps.
I'm only 25 miles from Bend-Pak and they will deliver it onto the garage floor at my location for an extra $196. They are in Santa Paula, CA. Other alternatives would be hiring a flat bed tow driver to meet you at the freight terminal, fork lift the item onto his truck and then you could slide it off the tilted bed of his truck into your garage.
Michael, I use the back part to lift, where i have it circled, for better support. But i have also used the same section as Eric, where the original jack goes, to lift too. Chris Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The CG of the car is still a long way from the center of the lift. You may want to turn the lift 180 degrees to be safe especially with the pads that far back! Image Unavailable, Please Login
Seeing that 328 on the lift in that picture is scary. That's about 6 inches from a very scary teeter-totter action.
I quite agree - and I'll flip the lift around... Allow me to humbly point out that it's a 308, though...
This would be MUCH safer! You'll need about another 10' of hydraulic hose to get the control unit in front or else cut a channel under the ramp to run the hose off to the side. Since I'm using Chris' ramp design with the steel plates, I could route the hose under the plate with plenty of clearance. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
NO worries.... I've mixed up the models too... it's easy to do... (don't let a 328 owner hear you say that, though... )
Michael, Nice cropping. Maybe i'll swing my lift around and try it too. I rather be safe then sorry too.
In the world of talents that I could have received... backing onto a set of ramps in a Ferrari with limited visibility somehow didn't make the list Seriously... it's tons easier to just spin the lift around than try and negotiate the car backwards... but it was a great suggestion!
