advice in picking a lift.

[slowmike]

Guys, first post here so I thought I'd make it a good one.

Good News:
* I'm buying my first house.
* I have 5 motorcycles (all sportbikes or scooters) so they are all very light. Planning on putting 4 of these on the lift at first.
* At this point all of the cars are outdoor cars (04 Golf TDI, 05 Odyssey minivan, 01 Corolla)
* I have a decent tool collection
* In the next 7 years I will have a 4wheeled toy.

Bad News:
* I live in NYC and the garage in the place I'm buying is only 7'9" wide, 20' long and 9' high. (Edit for typo was 10', my bad)
* I have decent tool collection and want a place to have vehicles and tools.
* I expect to have a 4 wheel toy that will be on the lift with the engine out often.

So, anyone have a recommendation for a 4 post lift with a solid deck option that has runways narrow enough so I can have my tool chest and freestanding big tools (drill press, 3D printer, bench vise, etc) on either side of the runways in a garage that is just 93" wide? But at the same time have the width to accommodate either an Lotus Exige, Ferrari 328, Ariel Atom, Radical SR3, Westfield XTR that will hopefully be along in a few years?

If all else fails I can get a 14' lift, scoot the lift so it's just 1" back from the door and have 5' of shop space to roll tool chests, and large tools to the back but I'm really hoping that there is a way to have the tools on either side of the runways as the lift is going up or down but I was hoping for something more elegant.

I'll only be on here sporadically while working to get the mortgage stuff squared away but hope to share cocktails, crazy computers and crazy vehicles with you guys.

 

[darkk]

Guys, first post here so I thought I'd make it a good one.
Bad News:
* I live in NYC and the garage in the place I'm buying is only 7'9" wide, 10' long and 9' high.

So, anyone have a recommendation for a 4 post lift with a solid deck option that has runways narrow enough so I can have my tool chest and freestanding big tools (drill press, 3D printer, bench vise, etc) on either side of the runways in a garage that is just 93" wide? But at the same time have the width to accommodate either an Lotus Exige, Ferrari 328, Ariel Atom, Radical SR3, Westfield XTR that will hopefully be along in a few years?

I can get a 14' lift, and have 5' of shop space to roll tool chests, and large tools to the back but I'm really hoping that there is a way to have the tools on either side of the runways as the lift is going up or down but I was hoping for something more elegant.
.

Talk about mission impossible...good luck with this one...

 

[ra42mario]

Just save up and buy some warehouse space.

I have a pretty narror 4 post, and I am sure its wider then 8'. 9' ceilings don't leave much to be desired on a lift.

 

[ricksvette]

This is a Harding Steel lift. It does has a solid floor...not sure how wide it is. It may be a consideration.

 

[Shadowdog500]

Guys, first post here so I thought I'd make it a good one.

Good News:
* I'm buying my first house.
* I have 5 motorcycles (all sportbikes or scooters) so they are all very light. Planning on putting 4 of these on the lift at first.
* At this point all of the cars are outdoor cars (04 Golf TDI, 05 Odyssey minivan, 01 Corolla)
* I have a decent tool collection
* In the next 7 years I will have a 4wheeled toy.

Bad News:
* I live in NYC and the garage in the place I'm buying is only 7'9" wide, 10' long and 9' high.
* I have decent tool collection and want a place to have vehicles and tools.
* I expect to have a 4 wheel toy that will be on the lift with the engine out often.

So, anyone have a recommendation for a 4 post lift with a solid deck option that has runways narrow enough so I can have my tool chest and freestanding big tools (drill press, 3D printer, bench vise, etc) on either side of the runways in a garage that is just 93" wide? But at the same time have the width to accommodate either an Lotus Exige, Ferrari 328, Ariel Atom, Radical SR3, Westfield XTR that will hopefully be along in a few years?

If all else fails I can get a 14' lift, scoot the lift so it's just 1" back from the door and have 5' of shop space to roll tool chests, and large tools to the back but I'm really hoping that there is a way to have the tools on either side of the runways as the lift is going up or down but I was hoping for something more elegant.

I'll only be on here sporadically while working to get the mortgage stuff squared away but hope to share cocktails, crazy computers and crazy vehicles with you guys.

How are you going to fit a car in a 10' deep garage let alone lift one?

Chris

 

[Cryptic1911]

How are you going to fit a car in a 10' deep garage let alone lift one?

Chris

Mini Cooper!

 

[Ray916MN]

Your 10' depth dimension must be wrong. I think you meant 20' or 19' based on your comment about getting a 14' lift and having room in front of it.

Your garage is very narrow. Allowing 6" for the thickness of the lift posts, you are left with 81" between the posts. This is probably about the width on a Lotus Exige with its mirrors folded out. You need to get the widest lift possible that will fit in the space. You're dreaming if you think you are going to be able to have tool chests or a drill press to the sides of the lift.

With a lift as wide as the garage you need to be able to have the lift control unit mounted on the outside front or rear of the post. If the control unit is on the inside of the post it is going to be necessary to flatten yourself against the wall to operate the lift and to slide by the car and lift post to get access to the lift control unit when you want to lift the car.

A 9' ceiling height is low for a lift. An Exige is 45.6". A sportbike depending on whether it is on its sidestand or on a swing arm stand is about the same height. Allowing 48" for each, plus 6" for the thickness of the lift runways gets you to a minimum ceiling height requirement of 102" versus the 108" ceiling height you've got. This is tight, since lifts generally lock in 4" increments and if you don't have a roll up garage door and/or you have lights in the center of the garage, you'll need clearance for these too. It is going to take some careful planning to be able to make a lift fit with respect to height. I would plan on having a roll up garage door and off to the side lighting. It will also take some care and discipline to not lift a car or motorcycle(s) into the ceiling.

Given how tight the space is I would get the shortest length lift that comes closest to fitting the width of the garage and which allows the control unit to be mounted on the outside of a lift post. It is very possible you will not find a narrow enough standard lift and your only choice will be to have a custom lift built. I would not worry about finding a lift with a solid decking option. The removable solid decking which comes with lifts is very heavy as it is engineered to take as much load as the runways. Because of its weight it is cumbersome to deal with. It is pretty easy to build decking that goes between the runways that is strong enough for your application and light enough to be easily handled.

 

[dmeadow]

I had a cheap 4 post storage lift that I used for very small cars. MG's mostly. I had to slide one of the ramps over to get the wheels centered on them better. I thought at times that it would be possible to shorten the bars that go across the width of the lift and move the posts closer together to take up less room in the garage. Of course, that would mean cutting them and rewelding the end pieces on them, along with shortening the cable system, etc., etc. I was never inclined to follow through as I wasn't all that tight on space and I did on odd occasions lift a larger car. Maybe that's a solution for you.

I think Ray916MN is right on with his height analysis, though. I had an 8.5' ceiling and I could never fit a car under the lift with a car on it raised as high as I could get it. And these were convertible MG's with the top down, although the Midget did have a roll bar that made it a bit high at 45". I doubt the extra six inches will get you there on the cars you are talking about.

 

[e-tek]

With those dimensions, if you lay them on their sides, you could put your bikes on top and fit an Ariel Atom underneath - LOL!!

We need pics of this space!!

 

[slowmike]

Sorry guys on the typo the garage 20' long, not 10'..

Ray, beautiful garage, someday I will have to have something like that. I have a list of 12 bikes that I want to collect and I'll need somewhere to store them plus the 4-5 daily riders.

Currently the garage will be housing an Aprilia RSV4 APRC Factory SE (55 of 350 made) with carbon bodywork and Alitalia livery (autographed by the championship winning 2012 WSBK team, the designers and the owner of Piaggio), Aprilia Mana converted to Factory Spec, 03 Aprilia Mille-R, a ex AMA 04 R1, the last Vespa GT60 (999 of 999) made, and will be adding a Vespa 946 in 2014 so any kind of mistake would be ridiculously expensive and could take months to get the correct parts.

I'd been using 45" as bike height and the exige or 328 as one of the taller cars I would try to fit. If stacking like this means my vehicle choice is restricted to an Atom or Caterham or Westfield.... Good for me, too bad for the wife and kids.

I was going to mount fluorescent lights on the sides of the walls near the ceiling and then mirror the ceiling to reflect light down. Now that it comes down to a matter of inches, I'm going to go with a polished, stained and sealed concrete floor over the epoxy.

Leaning towards either the Backyard Buddy which is 168" long x 110.5" wide x 81" tall with 4' deck height and 7.25" on either side of the ramps which gives me extra space in front and behind for tools to be rolled to while the lift is moving up or down.

Or the Dannmar is 170" long x 105" wide x 81" tall with a 4.5" deck height and 9" on either side of the ramps. Which gives me more space to the sides but less front and back.

Or the direct lift which is the longest at 176" x 103.5" wide x 83" tall with a 4.5" deck height looks like it gives me 9.125" between the runways and the wall.

It looks like all of these can have the hydraulic unit mounted to the wall. What do you guys think?

The other option was to get 2-3 of these http://www.loft-it.com/?page_id=10 and give up on the idea of having a lift that will fit cars and have to figure out some other way to lift or drop motors out easily.

I'll try to get some pics of the garage but it is hard to see anything as it is filled with the current owner's junk/stuff that should not be in the garage.

 

[Ray916MN]

Nice bikes!

Your biggest problem is your garage is only 7'9" (93") wide. The narrowest commonly available lifts are all roughly 100" wide or wider. All of the lifts, you referenced are too wide.

Bendpak has shown some willingness to customize the size of their lifts, so I would probably give them a call and see what they say.

 

[slowmike]

Oh ****... You're right. None will fit.

Edit.

Called Scott at Superlift and called Dave at Backyard buddy. Both can do something custom that will fit, both are about the same price ($5.4k shipped). Now to see which one I feel better about from a design and feature standpoint.

 

[2001RedCoupeBandit]

BendPak. Just ordered one. They make one that will fit, just call them.

 

[Shadowdog500]

You could get the platform elevator from a stacker trailer in that space. Friend just bought a Stacker trailer similar to the one below. Pull your toys in and strap them to the floor, hit the button and the floor goes up. Set the safety pins and pull more toys in.

Chris

 

[slowmike]

I called bendpack and was not impressed, I got transferred from person to person, some of the people didn't know how wide their lifts were and suggested models that did not fit. I was eventually told that all of their lifts come pre-assembled, no custom orders unless i was buying a large qty and they suggested I buy from a lift company that specializes in subterranian disappearing lifts, which is not what I want.

In contrast the superlift sales guy immediately said they could do custom and that it would be the same cost and the backyard buddy gal was almost 100% but connected me to the production manager who told me that he would send me an engineering diagram to approve, that there was no additional charge and went through what additional options would make my ownership experience better. He also went on to make sure that I knew how wide the modified lift would be and that it would fit my car maintenance needs.

So it's definitely going to be one of those guys. As it stands now, I'll be a backyard buddy owner in feb 2013 but I'd like to hear about any thoughts comparing the superlift and the backyard buddy.

BendPak. Just ordered one. They make one that will fit, just call them.

 

[Cryptic1911]

Contact JSK on here, he's a VP at Bendpak and will work with you. There have been plenty of people who have gotten custom made stuff from Bendpak through Jeff. We got our RJ45 jack and jack tray modified for our lowered cars, and they have made one off lifts before as well.

 

[SSAAHemiFan]

Unless they have changed there design in the last several years I would buy a BB over a Superlift. (and have - LOL)

Since the $$ is the same it's a no brainer

You will be very happy with the BB

 

[slowmike]

Contacted JSK. Thank you.

Contact JSK on here, he's a VP at Bendpak and will work with you. There have been plenty of people who have gotten custom made stuff from Bendpak through Jeff. We got our RJ45 jack and jack tray modified for our lowered cars, and they have made one off lifts before as well.

 

[ebmiller88]

Not to take away from the OP but has anyone used an AC Lift?

http://www.aclifts.com/parking/residential-car-lifts.asp

I tried contacting Jeff as well but my msg didn't go thu..too new I guess.

Ed

 

[slowmike]

Those are the guys that Bendpack recommended I look at when they told me they could not do a skinny lift.

 

[slowmike]

Update, I got the engineering schematics from Backyard Buddy to approve. Did some math and am very concerned about height. I have 108" of height which means with the lift raised so I can stand up I (68") will have only 36" for the bikes which are 50" high when on stands...

If I raise the lift so that there are 50" between the lift and the ceiling I will only have a height to walk and work in of 54", I'm not a hobbit so that won't work.. :-\ So now I'm thinking about getting either 2-3 x loft-it's or trying to custom build something where I can store bikes double high (maybe on pallette racks) and have a modified attic lift to get the bikes up the correct level to be stored.

Also going to check with Jeff to see if it's possible to get a PL-6000 with half of the platform removable, this way I can store the bikes and be able to walk though and if I need to work on a car I can do so by adding the other half of the platform..

 

[CamarosRus]

FYI (to whomever) Friend of mine has "standard" BYB for sale in Seattle,WA area.......

50% of NEW in spotless condition.

 

[Ray916MN]

Your garage dimensions are tight and aside from not being able to lift a car high enough to work under it standing, you also will not have enough clearance to the sides on a lift to do things like change wheels, do brakes or wheel bearings.

With respect to storage, again your garage is so narrow I would pay close attention to what will need to be moved to get a car or a bike out for use. My guess is no matter what, a car will have to be moved out to get a bike out, since there will not be enough room to slide a bike past a car parked in the garage. Also if you try to store bikes ahead of a car, you will not have any usable work space, because your ceiling height will not allow the bikes to be stored high enough for you stand under them and the bikes will take every bit of available space in front of a car (maximum 13' long). All this adds up to the best solution being a 4 post lift, if you have 6 bikes to store and a car. If you go this way, you end up with about 45 sq. ft. for your other storage or work space at the front of the garage.

Lastly, again because your garage is narrow and not tall enough, you're going to end up having to squeeze between a lift post and a car or between bikes and you'll have to duck to pull any vehicle out or to get to the front of the garage. The squeeze part probably isn't as bad as having to duck down to 54" at best. Practically this is a real stretch. Since it will be impractical to push a motorcycle into position while ducking and squeezing in the limited space, the forced parking arrangement would be to park the bikes on the decked lift, raise the lift and then park the car under the bikes. If you use the bikes more frequently than the bikes this is going to be a major pain. It will not be good for the car, since the majority of wear on engines come from starting them, when they have no oil pressure and running them for short periods of time isn't good either.

FWIW

 

[slowmike]

Update, spoke with Jeff, we are thinking of doing a modified PL-6000 where the tubes that hold the ramps are shorter and the ramps can be slid to one end to make one wide runway for bikes when they are parked, giving a half garage workspace that I can stand in and then slide the runways to full width to put a car on there for service/build. He will look into it more but I think we have a winner here. I'll post up more as I find out more.

 

[Ray916MN]

That's an interesting idea. I'd be surprised if it can be made to work out well. If you look at
the spec sheet for the PL-6000, http://www.bendpak.com/PL-6000.pdf it looks like the post assembly is 26" wide (110-84). In a 93" wide garage this would leave you will with 67" between the lift post and the opposite wall. Too narrow to get almost any car by. For reference the Ariel Atom is 70.5" wide.

 

[slowmike]

I'll ask if it's possible to do a narrower post, something in the 12-16" range when I talk with him next.