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Got my Autoweek Daily drive email the other day. They make a big deal, like it's their new idea, on how to use a 4 post lift in a two car garage to be able to have 3-4 cars in your 2 car garage. Boy are they behind the times. I've had mine almost two years and it turned out to be a much better idea than extending my garage by 15 ft.
I believe the rafters where around 8 ft. That was a problem. So I figured what height I needed to get the tallest car underneath, the Mini 51", and cut the the rafters and then re-mounted them higher up to get the space I needed. I cut about 4-5 to get that space. Then I did move the garage door opener a little to one side and was able to stop the retraction of the garage door at a point where it just touched the longest car, the Hemi/vette, with foam padding and still leaving me room to walk out of the garage without ducking beneath the door.
Lot's of measurements required but it works great. Supper nice to look at and work on the bottom of each car while on the lift. I did end up pushing a 8' X 14' shop off the far wall where I moved all my tools and bench which leaves my more room between the cars and that wall.
Resurrecting this as I just put my 66 Malibu in temporary storage until my buddy picks up my CTSV-Coupe. My C7 Z06 should be here any day. Need the motor and a widest lift that will fit in my bay and not crowd my wife’s Velar. I don’t want to mess with mirrors. The Malibu will go on top so I need something with oils drip trays. Appreciate model numbers and links.
Last edited by StorminNorm; 05-23-2019 at 01:02 AM.
I can only comment on my Bend Pac lift. I have had it for about 10 years and love it. My son's C5 fits on it. I opted for the aluminum removable ramps for the sake of my back. You will need a compressor to unlock the safety locks. That can be a small pancake unit. I think I got mine from Greg Smith. The drip trays come standard and I would pick up a jack tray or two. I wired the lift for 220V but it will also run on 110V as well. I think the unit I got was the HP9. No problem with parking a car alongside the lift in my two car garage. Jerry
I love my Bend Pac 6600 lb scissor lift......but it really gets in the way......I do not have a lot of head room, but enough to get the car 55" in the air which would work for me. My Scissor lift is great for brake, suspension and front and rear under body work, but that is it!
Would like to get a four post lift....Even if I have limited height, I would still be able to run and access everything underneath.......
My tallest car was the Mini @ 51". I planned the lift to stop at about 52-53". I then measured up about 60" from that point and got up and cut my rafters to clear the cars. I then took those cut 2X4's and moved them up closer to the roof and reinstalled them. My only issue turned out to my haste to get the lift. They had shorter corner posts that would have fit under my garage door but they weren't available for 3 months so I took the longer ones. They were ok except for the one corner under the garage door in the back. A friend had a heavy duty hack saw I used to cut that corner post down under the garage door. I then took that cable to a logging supply store to cut the cable to fit. So far I love it. I just bump my head once it a while while working on a car underneath the top one.
I did a lot of research on 4 post lifts when I was thinking about getting an additional car but decided to get rid of my office car instead. However I will share what I was able to find out.
I checked around with various sellers and I got the best information from Best Buy Automotive Equipment
They sell a number of different manufacturer’s 4 post lifts with varying capacities and costs. I think that Bendpak is probably the best lift out there but it was about $1000 more and I decided for my purposes I was going to go with their Nationwide lift. The reason was I was only going to use it to store the extra car, not to do daily work on the car. So it did not need to be of commercial grade. It was also only 110 volts (slower) whereas Bendpak was both 110 and 220). The Nationwide lift was still an 8000 pound lift and the cost was $1949 plus tax and freight and installation. It came with drip trays, roll blocks and a jack platform. They estimated that freight and installation should be around $650 to $750. You may want to consider aluminum ramps at extra cost instead of steel for weight saving in moving them around (the steel are about 50 pounds each).
The issue that most people will have will be the height of their garage. For most lifts you need the height of the 2 cars plus about 12 inches from the floor to the lowest part of the ceiling (which probably is the bottom of the rolled up door or the door motor). Note, if you have a low ceiling, there are other options. First you can move the door motor to the side which then means that the measurement will be from the floor to the underside of your door. Another option is that I had a convertible that was going to be on top and I had enough space in the back of the garage so that my hood and windshield were not under the garage door and motor. So then the measurement for the top car was only up to the top of the lower body.
In terms of the dimensions of the Nationwide unit it had the following dimensions (other units had similar dimensions):
-The lift posts are 81 ¾” high
-The outside width of the lift (outside of the posts) is 104 1/2 inches and the overall width with the motor is 114 inches (the motor sticks out on one side an additional 10 inches)
-The inside width of the lift (inside of the posts) is 84” (so your vehicle has to be less wide than that—they do have other lifts which are wider)
The dealer provided me a manual for this lift which went into a lot of dimensional and set up details. If anyone wants to see one just e mail me and I can send it to you. It is very helpful in planning out the sizes even if you dont go with this particular unit.
Note your floor needs to be flat. My floor had a 1 degree slope for water run off. They said that was ok as they would shim the lift to level it. But extreme slopes are a problem.
Z06 is 49”, Chevelle stock height is 53” (mine is probably lower) and ceiling is 112”. It is a tight fit but with the Chevelle on top, the door should have clearance above the trunk.
AGAIN, you need to add the height of both of your cars + 9 inches to fit...The stops on my 4 post are 4.5 inches in between...When you lift your top car it needs to go past the top stop you go to by a couple of inches...The easiest formula is car+car+9...I'm lucky enough to have a 124 inch garage in a condo...So I have 3 cars in it plus my HD and have plenty of room for tool boxes, cabinets, huge gun safe, wall mounted tire rack and overhead storage.
Resurrecting this as I just put my 66 Malibu in temporary storage until my buddy picks up my CTSV-Coupe. My C7 Z06 should be here any day. Need the motor and a widest lift that will fit in my bay and not crowd my wife’s Velar. I don’t want to mess with mirrors. The Malibu will go on top so I need something with oils drip trays. Appreciate model numbers and links.
01-19-2019, 12:01 PM
4 post lift
