This Type of Lift - Is It Ok for Our Cars?

[Pawel66]

I tried to do a proper search, found a lot about hoisting points, 2 vs. 4 post lifts etc., but I faild to find the answer if this type of lift (portable lift, as on the picture) is ok to use for our cars. I just found one picture in one thread it may be (enclosed).

I am not after pros and cons and which type is better, but rather - is lifting the car along the sills like on this type of jacks an acceptable idea?

So: is it ok to have this kind of lift for weekend amateur small jobs? If so, what should I pay attention to?

[Bonnyboy]

I did lots of research on these lifts before I bought one and I couldn't get along without it now.   Not as handy as a four post but i just don't have the room (ceiling height)

From everything I found - yes our cars are ok to be supported by the frame rails in the locations they are supposed to be lifted. 

I marked the center of my car (with a paint blob underneath) and the center of the lift so I try to march up the paint blobs so I get a balanced lift even if I extend the arms for various lifting positions.    also I lift the back by extending the lifting arms of the hoist under the axle / trailing arms so I don't let the rear end just hang down. 

The locking mechanism is something to look for on the hoist as some have a hokey bicycle brake handle moving a cable and you still have to move it manually to lock it in place - I removed my handle and just use a stick to lock it.

Also - check the length of hose from the hydraulic pump to the hoist - if it is too short it will be inconvenient.  Most are ok but I saw a chinese no name brand in a small garage and there was nowhere to put the pump that was convenient .

If you look hard auto dealers tend to have these for displaying cars but tend not to use them that much and may be available if you hit them near the end of the month.   If buying used check the seal for the hydraulics - a couple I have seen are weeping a bit.   

And most important make sure it is low enough for you car to drive over - there is not alot of room  - my MGB won't make it over my hoist but the Pagoda does.

[Pawel66]

Thank you for your kind answer!

Space is my issue as well. On the other hand the frequency and the type of work I do on my car is not very demanding for a professional lift. I need it just for Pagoda and 190SL for the future. I do not need any lift to get under my W463  . So the max weight I require is not that high.

I think then it would be important to determine how far from outside to set the supports. You say you have arms on your lift. I was looking at those lifts with plates and I wonder how far towards the center you should set them. Is it ok if support lines are as I mrked on the picture?

What I am currently looking at is the QuickJack. I see they are sold in Germany and they are about EUR 1000 plus shipping. It has the plates on which you just set rubber pads. The required clearance is 10cm, so I hope it will work. I will do the measurements to check if/how it will fit. They have a kind of "automatic" lock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f-NEIWgk18

[Garry]

I am also in the process of looking for a lift for my new garage being built at the moment.  Ceiling height is my problem (I have a ceiling height of 3.4 m) and I am thinking about going with a two post. The four post ones i have seen need a higher ceiling.  I would be also interested in comments on other types of hoists that others use.


Garry

[Bonnyboy]

I have used all of the points noted except at the forward end of the trailing arms.  And yes - if you lift the rear axle be careful that the rubber pads are in good contact where you want them once you start lifting.

I borrowed one of those lifts and after a day in my garage I couldn't live without it and convinced the owner to sell it to me.  I don't think I would continue in this hobby if I didn't have the lift.

 

[wwheeler]

The simple solution for restricted areas is  -https://www.maxjaxusa.com/ I have two these units in different locations and never had an issue. My brother-in-law has one and loves it. Yes, it is not heavy duty, but great for a DIY. Easy to install and is portable. It will indeed spoil you. And no, I do not work for this company! I am just glad somebody recognized the needs of the average DIY and built something that works.

They say that it requires an 8'celing. There are two positions - one at 2' off the ground and another at 4'. The 4 ' requires an 8' ceiling. But the good news it that you can drill your own "stop holes" based on ceiling restrictions.   

Wallace

[Pawel66]

I looked at those and indeed they seemed to be a good solution. Yet space remains the issue...

I think if the solutoins I am looking at are plate + pads rather than lifting arms, the question is probably to place the pads where the 4 support points are used for the lifting arms (one of them seen on your picture - fron right), then I think it should work fine.

Of course there are disadvantages of the QuickJack type solutions - height, side access, but then again - for my weekend purposes - to install the missing clamp, small fixes, cleaning of underneath and wheel wells - it is probably enough.

[jameshoward]

Ahhh, happy days. Putting the old girl on planks and axle stands in a tank hangar all winter and doing the rear axle swap; drums to discs; master cylinder; all lines; under-sealing; handbrake cables; er....

Pure hell.

Still, the jacking operation looks very professional in comparison to the red VW beetle in the picture above.

 

I tried to do a proper search, found a lot about hoisting points, 2 vs. 4 post lifts etc., but I faild to find the answer if this type of lift (portable lift, as on the picture) is ok to use for our cars. I just found one picture in one thread it may be (enclosed).

I am not after pros and cons and which type is better, but rather - is lifting the car along the sills like on this type of jacks an acceptable idea?

So: is it ok to have this kind of lift for weekend amateur small jobs? If so, what should I pay attention to?

[Pawel66]

It is a cool kind of hell...

My trouble is that I need to lift the car for shorter time more often. This Quickjack seems to be a match to what I need...

[Bonnyboy]

The beauty of the scissor lift is that when you are not using it is stores nicely under the car so you don't even know its there - but when you need it to say clean the mud off the rocker panels - you can lift the car right up.    I have spray painted markers on the floor of my garage so I know where to put it back if I need to drag it outside to lift up my wife's car or my golf cart.     

The entertainment value alone is worth price of admission.

[Pawel66]

I will get one. Just need to measure the car.

The disadvantage of scissor lift with plates is, I guess, that it fits just limited number of cars. The 4 point scissor one would cover wider range of cars. But it is more difficult to find one...

[66andBlue]

Not sure what you mean with a limited number of cars. It all depends on how well the arms can pivot and how many different plates you have.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=HBRrwjDPKUc

Perhaps you had something more simple in mind like this type?
https://www.automotechservices.co.uk/products/as-7530d-garage-scissor-lift/

[Pawel66]

Alfred, yes the 4-point scissor one can accomodate more cars, like the one from your first link. Just cannot find a decent one for a decent price here.

What I am looking at is this: https://www.quickjack.com/car-lift-systems/bl-5000slx-portable-car-lift.html

[jaymanek]

I have various types.
I have the max jax at home. great for occassional use.

However this is my favourite.

https://www.automotechservices.co.uk/products/as-7532b-3-2t-mid-rise-scissor-lift/

Obviously the 2 poster has advantages in terms of access to the underside of the car.

However the only jobs that it hinders, are underside bodywork and exhaust work, in my experience.

The automotech lift above, or its small brother, are both excellent lifts. Dont even need bolting to the ground and are completely sturdy.
No question of posts being ripped out of the concrete floor or any stability issues.

I have 3 of the above lifts at work and have recommended to various club members, who are delighted with them.

[Pawel66]

It looks good indeed!

My hesitation is this type, or the 4 point support one that you also see on the page.

I think the extendable platforms help make the lift fit more cars.

[Mike Hughes]

Looks like a pretty neat lift!  The only reservation I might have looking at the specs is that the length of the ramp is 1460 mm, 1994 mm if both the front and rear extenders are deployed and locked.  The wheelbase of a Pagoda is 2400 mm so what is the desired method of lifting a Pagoda? Placing blocks on the ramps under the relevant lifting points?

[Pawel66]

That was my original question. Yes - the pads on the plate/ramp either under the "normal lifiting points or under the places next to factory jack holes (towards the ceneter of the car). I was not sure there, and thas is what I asked.

[jaymanek]

Yes just place supplied rubber blocks under jacking points.

Although I cant recall if I ever tried my pagoda on this type of lift, I cant see why it wouldnt work.

[Pawel66]

Thank you, that is what I would think!

[Dash808]

What I am currently looking at is the QuickJack. I see they are sold in Germany and they are about EUR 1000 plus shipping. It has the plates on which you just set rubber pads. The required clearance is 10cm, so I hope it will work. I will do the measurements to check if/how it will fit. They have a kind of "automatic" lock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f-NEIWgk18

I currently have a QuickJack that I bought on special last year from the SEMA show.  In my opinion the QuickJack isn't so quick and I wouldn't recommend it as the two lifting systems have to be almost exactly parallel to each other to raise the vehicle safely.   
Positioning and adjusting and readjusting and re-re-adjusting the two systems to ensure both are are exactly parallel takes a fair bit of time in general and once they are positioned and the vehicle is in the air it is only accessible from the front or the rear since the QuickJack occupies the whole length of both sides of the vehicle. 

Also a note, I bought the larger QuickJack for use for my trucks but just thinking about it and the 113's jacking points and it especially does not seem like a good solution.



I'm in the process of designing/ rebuilding my garage & house and the end goal is to have a two post lift.  Atlas makes a quality product and has specialty lifts for low ceilings as well. 
https://www.atlasautoequipment.com/product-category/lifts/two-post-lifts/baseplate-2-post-lifts

[Pawel66]

I certainly understand limited access from the sides. No doubt that double post or 4 post lift is better than scissors lift. Then there is space and price factor.... And all of a sudden - scissor lift is not that bad  .

[Dash808]

I certainly understand limited access from the sides. No doubt that double post or 4 post lift is better than scissors lift. Then there is space and price factor.... And all of a sudden - scissor lift is not that bad  .

I agree, tough decision and each space saving style lift has their pros & cons.  I guess it also comes down to how much access you think you need and the type of work you want to be able to do. 

[Pawel66]

Yes, certainly. Nothing serious. it is a trade-off, I know. My key concern was: can I lift a Pagoda with 4 points support near the factory jack areas, or I have to go from bottom of the S frames to the rear suspension points.

[dirkbalter]

Pawel,
Have you seen this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3648917981&feature=iv&src_vid=rkGbqC9YWhM&v=_OYPgIQpfQo
Dirk

[Pawel66]

It is great, but it is a lot of space...

[Garry]

now i like that one but i dont think you can get in Australia. 

[wwheeler]

That is really innovative but like Pawel said, requires a lot of storage space. The MaxJax towers will unbolt from the floor and can be moved around. They can be stored in a corner in the garage. Without that feature, I would have no room for a lift.

[Pawel66]

It is all about trade-offs. Max Jax is great, but requires min 10cm concrete. I do not know if I have that and wil ltake no risk. Also: pulling out two heavy columns and bolting them each time you need a lift is a bit of a work for small jobs.

Typical scissor lift is just there on the floor. Or, in cae of Quick Jack, you just lie two flat plates on the floor. Trade-off is - limited access from the sides and, in case of plate lift, limited number of cars you can lift.

[Garry]

I am in the process of building a new garage and just waiting for planning approval at the moment.  Each bay is 7 x 5 meters and there are three of them so space is not a problem but overall height is.  I will be limited to 3.4 meters so a smaller tower is needed.

[Pawel66]

Your garage will be lovely!

If I had no constraints with space, I wold look at lift options closer to yours...

[mnahon]

Hi Pawel,

I bought a Quickjack yesterday and will assemble it and give it a try this weekend on the Pagoda. I'll let you know how it goes. My space is also quite constrained and I felt that realistically, on balance, the Quickjack was likely to be the best solution.

Meyer

[Pawel66]

Thank you This will be a very valuable input! Which size did you buy?

[mnahon]

5000 lb. This unit was on sale locally and gives me the option to lift some heavier cars than the 3500 lb unit which would be sufficient for the Pagoda. One issue with the smaller unit might be the lifting point spread (distance from front to rear support points).

[Pawel66]

The distance was exactly what I was after. Have not measured it yet.

[mnahon]

Hi Pawel,

I assembled the lift and lifted the car with it today. It mostly worked well. I ran into one problem: the locking bar on one side does not swing freely when the car is on the lift (it does when the car is not on the lift) so that the locking function does not work on that side. I figured I'd call it a day for today, because I was getting tired, and see what I can do tomorrow.

One thing I noticed: on the right side, the lift mechanism ends up quite close to the exhaust, so you have to be careful how you position it to avoid touching and possibly damaging the exhaust. I lifted at the front on the frame rails, and at the rear on the front attachments of the rear trailing arms. I was pleasantly surprised that there was a fair amount of height under the car with the lift at its highest position, so you'd be able to work reasonably comfortably---lying down, of course. But the lift mechanisms do take up a lot of space, so you could only access the central third of the car, which is still useful because that's where most of the important bits are.

Hopefully I can sort out the problem tomorrow and I'll take measurements and pictures for you then.

[Pawel66]

Thanks for that!

I hope it is something small with the lock on the right side and you will get rid of the issue quickly. When I Google "quick jack not locking under load" I get a video underlining that the locking arms need to move freely, cannot be tightened.

I did the measurements yesterday and see that both 3000lb and 5000lb would fit Pagoda, so my choice is probably also going to be the 5000lb as a more versatile one. Thank you also for the tip with the exhaust!

On the space occupied - I think if we suport the car in the places you mentioned, this space restriction would be the same with any plate-type lift. That is why I was wondering if it was ok to support the car in 4 spots just behind the factory jack spots - on the attached picture we have red circles, that were generally agreed to be ok on the forum with two of them being behind rear factory jack points. Can the front ones be used as well (white circles with question marks).

If not - we could lift the car with supports being under the full line circle or dotted line circle in the back and frames in the front. I suppose lift being at an angle is not the isue (white lines).
If yes - we could lift the car with supportds in the rear being the full line or dotted line circles in the rear and frame or white circle in the front.

I know this is every day thing for professionals, but I just do not want to damage anything.

[mnahon]

Hi Pawel,

I did not make much headway today. I can see approximately the cause of the problem, but not the solution. The fact that the left side lock bar does not swing freely is not due to overtightening. The locking bar is attached to its pivot shaft, and the pivot shaft passes from one side of the lift to the other, passing through the end of the hydraulic piston along the way. So for the lock bar to rotate, the shaft has to rotate.

When the lift is not loaded, the shaft does rotate freely. But when it's under load, it binds up, presumably due to the force exerted by the piston.  Some pictures below. I tried greasing the shaft, but that didn't help.

I don't really feel I should be trying to troubleshoot a brand new lift, so I've sent them a message and await a call back. We'll see what they say. I can't imagine I'm the first person to ever have this problem.

I'll let you know when this is resolved and I start using the lift.

Regarding jacking points: I'm reluctant to use the solid-circled points at the rear (just in front of the rear wheels) because my car has some rust there. Until I get around to getting that checked out to find the severity, I'd rather not put large loads on that area. So for now, I'll stick to the points I'm using.

Logically, it seems you should be able to support the car on both those outboard locations where the jack support covers are located. There have been pictures on prior threads (I remember some from Scottcorvette) showing the interior construction of those locations. The front jack points and rear jack points seem to be of similar construction. So if you can support at the rear point, you should also be able to support at the front point.

Regarding your angled configuration, the Quickjack instructions say that you shouldn't use an angled configuration; the two mechanisms are supposed to stay parallel. They don't say why.

[Pawel66]

Hi,

Thank you for an update and comments!

Hope they will fix it quickly. Troubles happen, point is how they help reslove them. Let's see....

Pawel

[mnahon]

Hi Pawel,

Here's my weekend update: the lift is now working, no thanks to Quickjack.

From last Sunday to Friday, I tried contacting Quickjack. I tried by phone, and through their on-line request form; many times. On Friday morning, I finally got a response asking for what the problem was. I replied quickly with all the details, and have not heard back since.

In parallel to this, I looked into returning the system to the store where I bought it. That was looking messy. They wanted the entire system returned; not just the one defective ramp. Packing up and returning the whole system would have taken a few hours.

So I took things into my own hands this morning and diagnosed and fixed the problem. Earlier, I had not wanted to try to do this because I felt I shouldn’t be trying to repair a brand new item.

It turned out the problem was due to a small manufacturing defect. The tolerances were such that the locking arm was not able to rotate on its support shaft, even though it was supposed to. I was able to figure this out by comparing to the right side, which was working properly. I used a dremel to fix this.

The reason it was working with no load is that, without a load, the shaft itself could rotate in its support. But with a load, the shaft is no longer able to rotate because of the force of the hydraulic piston.

I guess the lesson to all this is that quickjack has lousy customer support; and maybe their quality control could be improved.

I will post pictures a bit later this weekend.

Meyer

[mnahon]

Here are some pictures. By the way, the spead of the lift points that I ended up using, measured the same way that Quickjack shows in their dimension drawings, is 1308 mm. The maximum spread of the 3500-lb  quickjack unit is 1283 mm. I do think the smaller unit would work; there's enough leeway in fore-aft of the front support points; but it would just barely work. I think the 5000-lb unit gives you more options if you plan to lift anything else.

I'm including one picture that shows how close the left ramp is to the muffler. It works, but you have to be careful.

[Pawel66]

Happy you managed to get it working and point taken about their poor customer service. Given the marketing effort they undertaken, it is a pity they did not have such a critical component work.

Noted the point on the muffler. Is this when you put just one block as support? Or both thick one and thin one?

There seem to be enough space underneath for small jobs.

[mnahon]

I have a thin block at each front support point and a thick block at each of the rear points. I had done this, because at one point, I thought that the non-level lifting might be causing the problem I was having---the front points are slightly lower than the rear points, so the lift was contacting first at the front. That had nothing to do with the problem.

You're right that adding a block at the rear would give me a bit more clearance on the muffler. I will do that next time I lift the car. Right now the lift is stowed. I just leave the ramps on the floor aligned in the center of the car, disconnect the hydraulic hoses. I can take the car in and out of the garage, and I can deploy the lift reasonably quickly when needed.

[Pawel66]

Yes, that is what I was hoping for - you just leave the ramps on the floor and hook them as you need.

[Dash808]

Here are some pictures. By the way, the spead of the lift points that I ended up using, measured the same way that Quickjack shows in their dimension drawings, is 1308 mm. The maximum spread of the 3500-lb  quickjack unit is 1283 mm. I do think the smaller unit would work; there's enough leeway in fore-aft of the front support points; but it would just barely work. I think the 5000-lb unit gives you more options if you plan to lift anything else.

I'm including one picture that shows how close the left ramp is to the muffler. It works, but you have to be careful.

One of my hydraulic line's fitting's was defective on my Quickjack.  I called CS and they were very accommodating and promptly sent two new lines..... except they were the wrong two!  I contacted them again and they re-sent the correct two so now I have plenty of extra hydraulic lines if anyone needs a replacement 

So I had a good CS experience but as a note these are produced in China and materials and production quality are not exactly the highest.

[Pawel66]

Thanks for feedback!

[mnahon]

That's good to know. I'm hoping things will be smooth from here on and that my initial CS experience was an outlier. Overall, I'm happy with the purchase, because I think it's the right lift for my particular situation. It's a nice design and easy to use.

[mauro12]

Hi guys , it’s been quite long time but I wanted to ask you a question . I realized that almost all tire shops uses this kind of lift to replace tires. If you use this lift is not dangerous for our cars ? Because it seems that is not raising the car from the structural point but from a very external position and if you knock there , for sure is strong metal but is it strong enough to support the entire weigh of the car ?