Ben,
I bought a Direct Lift Pro Park 8 from Greg Smith Equipment a few years ago
and I've been very happy with it. It's very sturdy and feels quite safe to
me. The locking ladders seem to be pretty fool-proof. I also have a 10'
ceiling in my garage and I use the lift to stack my Elise and either our '09
TDI Jetta or our '10 TDI Golf.
To deal with the door, I had the tracks raised to the ceiling with a 'track
extension kit' or whatever it's called (I had a pro install it for next to
nothing) and had a jackshaft opener installed at the same time (A Liftmaster
3800). You don't need a jackshaft opener on a double door because the
opener will end up between the two bays in the ceiling, but I didn't have an
opener on my third bay so I moved the conventional opener over there and got
the new one for the big door. The coolest feature of that opener is the
motion sensor for the overhead light. I love walking into the garage at
night and having the light come on for me without having to hit any buttons.
A couple friends and I put the lift together in a leisurely afternoon. The
only thing that I'd do differently if I were to do it again would be to skip
the trolly jack that they sell for the lift. It was very expensive, weighs
a ton (although I set up a cart to make moving it on and off the lift much
easier) and has a short throw. So short that it won't get most cars off
their tires in one cycle. You have to jack the car up as much as you can,
put stands under it, drop the jack and add blocks and then lift again.
Probably not an issue for you if you only plan to use the lift for storage.
Also, there's a flow restrictor on the hydraulic line coming from the
cylinder that limits the rate at which the lift can be lowered. I'm all for
safety, but it makes it painfully slow, especially when it's unloaded. If I
ever have reason to drain the hydraulic fluid, I am going to either remove
that restrictor completely or replace it with one just a bit less
restrictive. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but I keep the lift all the
way up and out of the way when I'm not using it. When I do need to shuffle
cars around and put one up, it's annoying waiting for the thing to get to
the ground.
FYI, Greg Smith will negotiate prices, especially if you buy multiple items.
I got the lift, the trolly jack, the Atlas 21 tool cabinet and an
adjustable height, rolling work table for working under the lift and I
remember that they knocked a decent bit off of the order.
Let me know if you have any specific questions.
-Paul
On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Ben Zwissler <bjzwissler at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I'm looking to acquire a new project car for the winter, but if I do it'll
> displace one of my LBCs from the "shop" and I'll be out of space to get my
> daily driver in the "non-shop" garage. It seems a four post lift would be
> a good solution to double up. The shop is not suitable for the lift due to
> low ceilings, but the "non-shop" garage has 10 foot ceilings and is
> otherwise a pretty typical home garage with a single, double wide overhead
> door and little extra length. Even with the typical garage stuff stored at
> the end, I've got 220" of length and 114" of width for parking. I've got a
> roll up standard overhead door and I'd have to do something with it to get
> it to hug the ceiling.
>
> The "top" car would be the TR4A or TR8 and the "bottom" car would be my
> short cab, standard bed, 2WD Ford Ranger. I've been looking at the Bendpak
> HD7P and I'm interested in any suggestions, alternatives, lessons learned,
> etc. before I go further.
>
> Thanks, Ben....
>
>
> --
> Ben Zwissler
> bjzwissler at gmail.com
> Columbus, IN
> 1966 Triumph TR4A
> 1980 Triumph TR8
> 2007 Mazda RX8
> 2003 Honda ST1300
> 2005 Harley-Davidson V-ROD
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