OVEREXTENDED2015

You Sir are the envy of every shadetree/motorhead mechanic in the universe. I some how sense a military, or automotive background? Thanks for sharing excellent photography.

Capt Mike

I get around most of those inconveniences with two jack plates. True, still extra time spent with suspension.

But the convenience of a Safe drive on lift is difficult to beat !! I feel much safer working a four post drive on ramp lift, by far. I worked under hydraulic center lifts through high school and I have a close friend than has a center post lift,, and they still make my nervous.

Life has it's trade offs !! Either one still better than a creeper.

BillY2KFRC

Definitely have one of these in my future if I get a third car. Problem is, my house is log construction, so I can't easily add a third garage and my ceiling height is only 9ft. Good news is above my garage is just attic space, so I'd imagine the ceiling can be raised a few feet to give me plenty of height for a lift.

For anyone with experience in this area, barring an structural issues, which of these two solutions do you think would be easier? And anyone have any idea what I'd be looking at money wise?

- Do a 2-3ft tray ceiling increase just above the right garage bay where I would put the lift
- Raise the entire ceiling 2-4ft

Thank you for any thoughts or advice!

Current garage setup:

RonR80

I also have a Bend-Pak HD-9, lifts 9000 lbs plenty for the work I do , the only thing I would change if I did it again I would get the extra wide one , new vettes are close in width , and some of the trucks I work on are pretty wide . Other wise no issues

Z_fox

We have an HD-9 4 post lift. I added a rolling bridge jack after a few months of use. So much easier raising the wheels off the ramps now. Was a bit pricey though. Needed to use an engine hoist to lift it onto the ramps, weighs over three hundred lbs.

enoniam

We are getting pretty close to closing a deal on acquiring a small storage unit business within walking distance of our house. The seller built this place and as it was originally his home construction business location, with the storage units later added to the property, it includes a good amount of shop space. At one end of the main building it has two garage doors, each big enough to swallow a semi trailer in height and width, and about half of the length. I'm looking to make this my wrenching play-pen area and I'm not going to be constrained vertically (about 30' of headroom) nor likely to need a lift to expand auto storage.

I used my daughter's fiancée's two-post lift this summer to drop the engine out the bottom of the vette and in doing so became pretty familiar with how that made life easier than having no lift as well as some of the limitations of that type of lift. It seems to me that a 4-post lift would not be nearly as well suited for dropping the front k-member and engine out of a vette, but never having worked with a 4-post drive on lift I'm open to hearing opinions from those who have. If vehicle storage is a non-needed benefit to a 4-post lift, is it still the lift of choice for you? I know with future son-in-law's lift we couldn't get the 2-post lift's arms under the car with it sitting on the floor so having to deal with that is a bit of a negative for that style of lift. Would like to hear all of the pros and cons for this type of situation so let 'em rip tator chip!

novasscnc

In Canada, from Calgary I have a lift King very happy, with the dollar might be worth a look I paid $2250 with casters, trip trays and jack tray a lot of them they get you on the extras

enoniam

This pic is on Bendpak's web site.

FirstC4

I'm curious, How wide was the garage in your Indiana home?

Patches

About 21 feet.

JETninja

I wouldn't own any lift that wasn't a Bendpak, they are built heavy duty and are worth every penny.

FirstC4

Perfect thanks!

I only have 19'6" width, so the narrow 100" HD-9ST should give me about the same proportions to work with as you had.

It looks like you mounted the unit on the backside of the post instead of he side. Is there a special bracket for that or did you fabricate it?

Patches

Standard mounting that Bend Pak comes with - notice I mounted it on the "back" post in Indiana and swapped that to the "front" post here in SoCal.

IMXCITD

Do it...you will love it!

RetiredLE

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to hook up the electrical? Just got this lift and all it had was a short pigtail of wires coming out of the motor, not even long enough to feed into a junction box.
It's set up for 220 but those wires look awfully thin.... All of my 220 equipment (welder, air compressor, etc.) is set up with dryer cord plugins. But the wires from those items are quite a bit heavier in gauge. Any suggestions, pics etc would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

Patches

My BP is about ten years old so it's a bit different from yours but this might help.

I got heavy duty cord and a 220 V plug, pulled those wires back into the Bend Pak box and wired the cord into them. I had a 100-amp sub-panel added in the garage in both houses I have had the lift in to be able to run it and several other devices. I have operated this lift for 10 years using this setup.











The air lock release button


Hydraulic hookups (Instead of "Back", substitute "Front" on those labels for the current setup.)




One thing that bugged me during the initial installation is that there were no wrench flats machined into the rod to keep it from rotating while tightening the nylock nut.

Capt Mike

If the label on the side of the motor rates it at 220 VAC,, single phase

Then the Green is Earth ground and the black and white are each 110 VAC, which equal 220 VAC Ground is the center pin on the connector, plug and socket.

The above connector shown, is 20 amps AC MAX

I used a larger current connection that matches my MIG & TIG Welders so that I have a plug-in at that end on the garage.

Is you can't find a long enough pig tale then consider purchasing a 220 VAC extension cord that matches your required wall socket and cut off the end at the motor

IT's always a great deal safer to utilize a molded connector on a AC Circuit, especially at 220 VAC circuit that is inherently difficult to plug-in or un-plug

Michael..

RetiredLE

Thanks for the replies AND the pics. I went ahead and used two (30 amp/250volt) twist loc connectors (one to the motor wiring and the other to a 6' dryer cord to connect the motor to power. It worked.

Here is a shot of the connector with the water separator in the background.