Finally have a lift!

Only took me 60 years to get one. Quite excited to finally have one. Now I get to take out the race car transmission to fix the darn thing..........

Congratulations! That looks like a very nice shop/ garage. Hope it brings years of happy wrenchin to you.

Good looking home (?) shop . Now all you need is a 4 post hoist for those other jobs 😁

Tex

Bendpak Asymmetric
Nice $,$$$

I would like a tall lift, since I have 14ft headroom.

I’m jealous. Very nice!!!

Very nice, you're going to love it! Now you need one of these, https://www.harborfreight.com/20-gallon-portable-oil-lift-drain-69814.html. and one of these, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KUX5TPW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.

Yes,
After spending the money on the lift, now a need to spend more for the trans jack, etc.
I should have put a lift in my new shop when the building was built in 2019. Lift prices were lower then...

I just installed a new Atlas BP8000 lift in my 3rd car garage bay area 2 weeks ago. This lift is built very well and designed for home garage ceiling heights, and minimum 4”-5” concrete thickness. I have 10’ ceiling height. When we built the house 22 years ago I had the builder make the entire garage area 5’ deeper than normal and they also made the concrete floors 12” thick. I had an electrician come add 240v before the install. I’m going to install new taller garage door rails which will give me another 26” of lift space putting the door a couple inches below the ceiling when open, and install a new side-jack garage door opener; once both are done it’ll allow total access to the underside of the car with the garage door open or closed. I could get away with just removing the current garage door opener, but the door would always need to be closed when the car is extended up on the lift. Perfect fit, and allows plenty of room around the entire car. This definitely helps make car maintenance easier, and most importantly it helps keep the body off the ground.

Sweet!!

Congratulations on the beautiful addition to your family.

I had an old 2 post lift I finally cleaned up and installed this year. Love it, just wish it went a touch higher as im 6’3”. Still makes life so much easier. Congrats, you’re going to love it.

In the long process of building my new garage. I went with an in ground scissors lift. It has a 9000 lb capacity, and rises 6’ above the floor height. They can be used as a pair for lifting cars, or singularity for motorcycles/ atv/ lawnmower etc… A lot of extra work in the floor prep, but having full floor space when not in use was worth it for me.

Next to heat a hoist is the best tool you can own. I've been spoiled for 18 years.
Doug

i'm jealous of you guys !
the older i get, the dumber i realize i was when i replaced my garage roof way back in 1996.
at that time, i thought about raising it some to gain overhead storage and a little more head room.
for some reason, i didn't follow through. a future lift was never even thought of.
well, now my old bones are telling me i need to do something my old man was fond of saying : "get a bag full'a quarters and back up next to the a$$ kickin' machine !" , for not raising the head room when i had the perfect chance to do so.
as it is now, i only have roughly 7ft of clearance, so a mid level lift is my only hope, but the ones i have seen seem to limit the access to the underside somewhat, and i haven't been very impressed with their operation or construction.

Congrats!

The hoist and hydronic/radiant floor heat make it enjoyable to keep doing all this kind of stuff.

I'm also 6'3 so I bought an extra height lift for tall people. The ceiling height is 14 foot and the lift is just over 13 foot at the top so it should be decent head room.

Changed the oil in my daughter's car on it Saturday night. What a blessing! I bought a oil drain unit with the lift so I'm good there, and ordered a transmission lift today. Bought what I hope is a good one!

Hay man! Can I come over and borrow your garage.

Congrats guys, your garages and lift setups look awesome!

How thick is your concrete? I've heard a normal 2 post needs 4.5" of concrete thickness to be safe, and I'm not sure mine meets it.

My garage is barn shaped with a super tall roof but has a little room above it that limits the height. I don't know if I can rip the floor out of the upstairs room to gain roof height without the structure falling down, but I'd love to do that to put a full height 2 post in.

I took a lot into consideration before buying my lift this month. Mainly because I have been waiting for approval from my HOA to allow me to build a 30’Wx30’Dx16’H shop on my property. That’s taking a while so I didn’t want to further delay the purchase because these things keep increasing in price. I decided on this lift because it has nice features and a few upgrades versus others I checked out, and the price was somewhat affordable. It fits the current installed location perfectly and allows total access in a limited amount of space. If the HOA approves my request in the near future I’ll remove it from my garage and reinstall in the shop. Another thing I considered was most times I’ve used other lifts the vehicles are rarely positioned at max height.

My garage ceiling is 10’ and my concrete is 12” thick. You'll need to know your thickness for sure, and if anything else is going on inside the concrete where your holes will be drilled. This lift (Atlas BP8000) I have needs minimum 9’-6" ceiling height and 4-5” concrete thickness. I guess in the end you have to also consider your personal body height, and the size of your vehicle(s) you’ll be putting on it. Mine is good for 8,000#’s and all our vehicles we own will work within the current ceiling height to complete any work needed to be done, which also includes my Ram 2500 Cummins (but not at max lift).

Here’s the dimensions sheet for my lift to give a little more perspective.

My concrete is not what I paid for. I paid for extra thick under the lift but I also missed the location by about a foot. Still should have been thick under it, but it’s not. Minimum requirement is 4.25 inches 3000 psi slab. I bought a 5 inch slab and it’s 4500 psi. Where I broke through drilling the studs it was right around 5 inches so I’m good but not fantastic. I was drilling deeper than recommended. Instructions said drill 4 inches deep I tried to drill 5 inches. Eventually settled on 4.25 inches deep holes.

My slab spec was 4500psi 6" slab, foam insulated, mesh reinforced, with PEX installed for the heating system.

When I drilled through for the hoist install I found out it was actually about 7 and 1/2".

Had to decide before the slab was poured exactly where hoist posts would potentially go, route the pex around those areas, etc.

It's possible to saw and jackhammer out smaller selected areas and pour thicker reinforced areas for hoist, if existing slab isn't quite thick enough.

A friend of mine bought a used set of “max jacks” (mid rise lift.)
He has an attached garage with a standard height ceiling, but the floor was questionable with just barely a 4” slab. He ended up cutting out a 4x10 section to mount the hoist posts. He poured it about 8” deep with crossed rebar and pinned with rebar to the existing slab. The max jacks are two independent posts with no adjoining cross beam, so a good concrete base is a must in my opinion. They work nice.
They are also designed to be “movable”. They are mounted with female thread inserts in the floor, and have hydraulic quick couplers, so if needed, the can be moved for open floor space without a whole bunch of effort.

Thanks guys, that's all super helpful. One of my friends is talking about doing the Max Jax lift in his garage with a low ceiling height, and he is already prepared to cut out the concrete and repour.

Hey markz528 have you had any trouble with your Focus transmission yet? I just had my 2018 fixed under powertrain warranty, this has been an ongoing problem with the TCM but it was supposed to have been fixed in 2017.

DPS6? may be worth a deeper dive.....

Oh yeah. It’s a 2017 so it’s not included in the lawsuit. 40,000 miles now. It was fixed under warranty about a year ago and daughter is complaining that it’s doing it again, but intermittently. Not good…. Now it’s out of warranty.

I did get a great deal on it, $13k new out the door, but it’s still aggravating.

Well I am jealous. I miss not having one. I went from a shop with 12 lifts both two and four posts to nothing and I dont like it. My garage floor is a suspended concrete floor so I am not able to install one here. other than outside.