Electric Garage Hoist Suggestions
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I had a shop fox that I bought for $175. It worked I think it was rated at 900 lbs, a friend of mine has a super winch mounted on a plate with rollers that he uses, its something like 12K lbs, and he can lift up entire cars with it, lol I think it would pull his building down if he attached it to the floor... Not sure how safe it is, if a std winch has locks or what, but he has been using it for years, pulled out a dt466 international motor out of a school bus with it, the winch didn't care about the weight and that is a pretty heavy engine {has to be 1500 range}. I was there for the end of that ordeal they ended up having to lift the engine over the BUS!!! The bus was backed in and too long to back up more to get the motor out of the way, lol, not a well thought out plan, funny stuff..
But anyway if you are looking for something cheap the shop fox works for me, but I don't use it much, I use it to lift car bodies mostly, I had it holding a 70 chevelle body 12"s off the ground for 4 months, it never dropped it and picked it up with ease, not sure what that weighs, had no doors, nose, or interior on it...
But anyway if you are looking for something cheap the shop fox works for me, but I don't use it much, I use it to lift car bodies mostly, I had it holding a 70 chevelle body 12"s off the ground for 4 months, it never dropped it and picked it up with ease, not sure what that weighs, had no doors, nose, or interior on it...
rlitman
Well-known member
I had a HF 880lb one. When I got a pneumatic on CL, I never looked back. Pneumatic and chain are so much better than electric and cable.
Just remember that a vehicle winch cable isn't rated for overhead lifting just pulling. I need to add some type of hoist to the shop.
kctyphoon
Banned
just a suggestion - you can consider a good used manual lever chain hoist, or even that newer HF 1.5 ton chain hoist over one of those cheap electric wire winch hoists.. even if the cables are rated to hold the load, they can stretch and cause the load to bounce if it gets hung up on anything..
if you replace your pawl brake style come-along with one that has a disc brake, you get a handle that can provide 360 degrees of rotation and continious lift with infinite positions instead of just the one click up or one click down positions
http://t.harborfreight.com/1-1-2-half-ton-lever-chain-hoist-66106.html
or another choice is the tradition chain hoist - that gives you the opportunity to stand off to the side a little, but you have all the chain in the way to deal with.. this is a HF 2 ton
http://t.harborfreight.com/2-ton-chain-hoist-631.html
$99 and $79 without the 20% off coupon..
if you replace your pawl brake style come-along with one that has a disc brake, you get a handle that can provide 360 degrees of rotation and continious lift with infinite positions instead of just the one click up or one click down positions
http://t.harborfreight.com/1-1-2-half-ton-lever-chain-hoist-66106.html
or another choice is the tradition chain hoist - that gives you the opportunity to stand off to the side a little, but you have all the chain in the way to deal with.. this is a HF 2 ton
http://t.harborfreight.com/2-ton-chain-hoist-631.html
$99 and $79 without the 20% off coupon..
8man
Well-known member
I went the Northern Tool lift with their ekectric carraige assembly. Works great.
shampoop
Well-known member
What kind? I've never even considered the idea that pneumatic engine hoists existed. Unless they're crazy expensive it makes a lot more sense to me in any automotive situation. No electric motor/cord/circuit to worry about, easily vary the speed.
Anyone else know who sells quality ones new? I'm curious how much they go for.
This is about as cheap as you can go for electric powered winches. I've actually replaced the 12v with a 110V winch rated at 440LB straight pull or 880LB if you use a ****** block in the line. I use it to lift 500 lb motorcycles and it does the job with little strain. It runs about $150.00. The big brother is around $220.00 and is rated at around 900LB straight or 1800LB with a ****** block.
By far the best winch for this application is the roller chain type because the chain never bunches up so it always winds in and out evenly. Large winches on cranes etc have 75 -100 LB balls on the end of the whip line and a very heavy traveling block on the main line to hold enough tension on the cable that it spools in evenly, row upon row. Small winches don't use weights so when there is no tension on the line the coils on the drum loosen up. Then when some weight comes on when winding in, the loaded cable squeezes in between the loose windings passing over them on angles which damages the cable. Then when feeding out with an engine on load and you get to the point where the loaded windings end, the slack in the loose windings tightens up causing the engine to drop for an inch or so quickly. This can injure someone who is guiding the engine into position.
So just remember to always be the guy running the controls and let someone else do the guiding.
Actually if you had a 2000 lb winch always set up for lifting you could put a 30 lb weight over the hook and the cable should spool evenly on the drum. I use mine to drop motorcycles on a 3' high stand by myself and always am careful to keep my hands out of danger if there is a little slip and it works well for me.
The safety rating of cable is 1/5th the breaking strength. There is a formula for determining when a wire rope is damaged enough to be unsafe. It is something like 3 broken wires in any strand or 7 broken wires in all the strands combined. (individual wires make up a strand and usually there are 7 strands including the core to make up a wire rope).
By far the best winch for this application is the roller chain type because the chain never bunches up so it always winds in and out evenly. Large winches on cranes etc have 75 -100 LB balls on the end of the whip line and a very heavy traveling block on the main line to hold enough tension on the cable that it spools in evenly, row upon row. Small winches don't use weights so when there is no tension on the line the coils on the drum loosen up. Then when some weight comes on when winding in, the loaded cable squeezes in between the loose windings passing over them on angles which damages the cable. Then when feeding out with an engine on load and you get to the point where the loaded windings end, the slack in the loose windings tightens up causing the engine to drop for an inch or so quickly. This can injure someone who is guiding the engine into position.
So just remember to always be the guy running the controls and let someone else do the guiding.
Actually if you had a 2000 lb winch always set up for lifting you could put a 30 lb weight over the hook and the cable should spool evenly on the drum. I use mine to drop motorcycles on a 3' high stand by myself and always am careful to keep my hands out of danger if there is a little slip and it works well for me.
The safety rating of cable is 1/5th the breaking strength. There is a formula for determining when a wire rope is damaged enough to be unsafe. It is something like 3 broken wires in any strand or 7 broken wires in all the strands combined. (individual wires make up a strand and usually there are 7 strands including the core to make up a wire rope).
rlitman
Well-known member
Mine is a 1/2 ton Yale. Last I looked, retail was $3000 or so, but I got it for $250 on CL. The guy I got it from got it from a steel yard many years before.
There are used ones out there for reasonable prices. Here's a 1 ton for $250 today:
https://newjersey.craigslist.org/tls/4872921075.html
First off, chain doesn't ever cross over in the drum, so there's no worry about winding it correctly, or getting split wires piercing your fingers, or having the load drop a fraction of an inch when the cable shifts. I'll take chain over cable any day of the week.
Being pneumatic, it is variable speed. This is a HUGE improvement. The biggest issue I had with my electric hoist was the herky jerky motion.
Pneumatic chain hoists either have cable or pendant control. The one I linked above has cable control. There's a pivoting arm which two cables are hung from. Pull one side of the arm down and the chain goes up, pull the other, and it pays out chain. Something at each end of the chain bumps into this arm causing it to gently auto-reverse at the end, instead of break.
Pendant controls are like the wire control on the HF hoist. Mine has a cable that holds a few air hoses and an up and down button. They drive air cylinders on the side of the hoist that then pivot the same lever. So, so long as I can reach the hoist, I can control it directly too, without using the pendant (since I use mine to move things to/from a loft, I can control it from "upstairs", and use the pendant downstairs).
These do draw a lot of air though, but you're not using it continuously for that long anyway... The pendant cylinders also leak a little on mine, so I have a valve downstairs that shuts off the hoist's air supply when I'm not using it.
There are variable speed electric chain hoists now too, but they're new technology, so I haven't seen one used for an affordable price yet.
rlitman
Well-known member
I've got a 2-ton manual chain hoist too (but I've only used it in it's 1-ton configuration without the pulley at the hook). It's a good backup, but it takes ages to lower my snowblower from the loft to the ground.
Mine is the loop chain style. It's much faster to operate than the lever style, but the loop is always getting in the way. I had to shorten my loop a few feet, but then it slows you down a little more.
If you're just pulling engines though, a manual chain might be just the ticket. They're cheap, and allow for millimeter up down adjustments really easily. It'll lift much more easily than a comealong (and lower oh so much more smoothly), and if a comealong was good enough for now, it's a huge and cheap upgrade.
justme-
Well-known member
Friend of mine wore out the small HF electric hoist in about 6 months. He had it set up over a pulley (halving the weight per cable) pulling a small (3 foot square) platform up as a material elevator. Gave it to me to play with - after opening it up to see what went wrong I can say skip it... not well designed for the intended purpose. We use chain falls at work - 1/4 inch chain good for around 1000 lbs. Loop chain style.
454ragtop
Well-known member
I have 2 Budget 1/2 ton electrics, one on each beam in my shop. These are roller chain true industrial types, I love them. Rated for 1/2 ton, I used one to pick up a Van Norman #12 mill a couple times, which is more like 15-1600 lbs, no problem. I had a pneumatic one at one time, but I didn't like it as much as the electrics, so I sold it. Swap meets and CL are your best bet for these. If anyone looking has 440 volt 3 PH power, I have another 1/2 ton Budget I'd let go cheap.
Jim
Jim