Car lift

[turnnut]

1930,

try this,they show a lot of there lifts, I think it was a southern address.

http:www.challengerlifts.com

it might be a CLFP9

Frank

[rusty]

Be carefull of Chinese copycat lifts, and old lifts from folks that are no longr around. The life we have here I can not get pads or extenders for because the pins are a weird oddball size nobody uses anymore :(

Safety locks on some of the older lifts are kinda scary also. Make sure it has both vertical mechanical locks, and anti swing locks on the arms. I have seen lifts missing either of these , and one that had neither..

Think also about your ceiling height, you need the highest lift plus the height of the car, plus 2 feet more if you leave the hood open. Yes, I have squashed the hood of a car on the ceiling ;P
(don't ask)

John mentioned early cars, part of the problem here is older lifts also had a rather small spread on the arms, that focuses the weight in the middle of the car, you don't want that, it is hard on the car, and reduces the stability of the car on the lift. Find a lift with nice wide arms. Finally, RunAway from the lifts with metal flip plates instead of rubber pads, they are an old , obsolete design, and dangerous....metal slides very nicely on greasy oily metal...and bad things happen..very very bad things...

[1930]

If you are going to work on cars older than WWII, I would not use a 2 post frame lift. I have a friend that has had big problems with door alignment on his Model A roadster from using a 2 post. The frame is not heavy enough for that type of lift.  I would stick with the drive on type.

I will keep this in mind, thanks

[1930]

1930,

try this,they show a lot of there lifts, I think it was a southern address.

http:www.challengerlifts.com

it might be a CLFP9

Frank

Im off that one for now, something about vague information and Miami has me spooked. Thanks though

[1930]

Be carefull of Chinese copycat lifts, and old lifts from folks that are no longr around. The life we have here I can not get pads or extenders for because the pins are a weird oddball size nobody uses anymore :(

Safety locks on some of the older lifts are kinda scary also. Make sure it has both vertical mechanical locks, and anti swing locks on the arms. I have seen lifts missing either of these , and one that had neither..

Think also about your ceiling height, you need the highest lift plus the height of the car, plus 2 feet more if you leave the hood open. Yes, I have squashed the hood of a car on the ceiling ;P
(don't ask)

John mentioned early cars, part of the problem here is older lifts also had a rather small spread on the arms, that focuses the weight in the middle of the car, you don't want that, it is hard on the car, and reduces the stability of the car on the lift. Find a lift with nice wide arms. Finally, RunAway from the lifts with metal flip plates instead of rubber pads, they are an old , obsolete design, and dangerous....metal slides very nicely on greasy oily metal...and bad things happen..very very bad things...

Thanks for all of this, I will consider all of these things in my purchase. Again not interested in China crap

[1930]

This is the lift I ended up with. It is a Benpack MX10ACX. From what I have read on-line it is an excellent lift although a few years old.

Make a long story short cosmetically although its been outside for some time ( not sure how long ) its in great shape, there are a couple of spots where the finish has given way to rust but I can take care of that and its mostly in area that arent going to be seen.

Guy originally had it advertised on Craiglist with no model name or number and when I inquired he became quite arrogant acting as if he had no time for such dumb questions ( welcome to Fl. )

A little persuading gave me the needed info and thats when I discovered that the asking price was a pretty good deal assuming it functioned as well as he said it did.

He swore he seldom used it cause his guys just used the regular car jacks to change out the tires but he was not the original owner.

Anyway drove to Jacksonville and was quite pleased with the lift cosmetically. Put his wifes van on the lift, raised it and was still pleased, what a deal I thought.

Things went downhill from there.

Make a long story short ( I did promise that above didnt I ) I drove away with it paying 275 dollars for it.

The hydraulic hoses are shot, they need replacement......no big deal.

The release ( small cable has snapped ) for the safety catches does no work. No big deal I guess from what I can see at this time.

What has me confused is in that the lift arms do not or would not lower, even when I pulled the hoses they would not just drop. I would have thought that once pressure was released the cylinder pistons would retract within the cylinders but they would not.

The pictures you see below are with the hoses disconnected.

They did a little but would not go all the way. No leaking fluid other than the hose, no leaking cylinders. I dont think there is a problem with the cylinders at this point.

There is a chance that the broken cable for the manual safety release was causing the chocks to hold up and I guess I should have looked into this but in 100 degree heat I just wanted to get it apart and get it home.

I guess the questions is......once hoses are pulled from the cylinders wouldnt the pistons automatically retract assuming nothing was stopping them mechanically from doing so?

The other possible scenario is that the lift is dry, water has washed away what grease was within the columns, when raising it groaned and I could tell that it was just plain without any sort of grease to help things move freely.

After disassembling it for taking home I could plainly see no grease anywhere. Maybe that is just causing things to hang.

[rusty]

If you layed the posts down to bring it home, the safety latches probably flipped sideways in the posts, locking the arms. Since you don't have a working release cable, it is going to be hard to fix ;P

Also, the lift must be lifted on hydraulic power to release the first stage of the mechanical safety, then you pull the cable, then go down...(works that way so you don't pull the cable with a broken cylinder and drop the thing to the floor, car and all)

PS: Do not screw electrical conduit or anything else to the posts, the inner bearing pads slide inside the post, the screws will do bad things where they go through...

[1930]

If you layed the posts down to bring it home, the safety latches probably flipped sideways in the posts, locking the arms. Since you don't have a working release cable, it is going to be hard to fix ;P

Also, the lift must be lifted on hydraulic power to release the first stage of the mechanical safety, then you pull the cable, then go down...(works that way so you don't pull the cable with a broken cylinder and drop the thing to the floor, car and all)

PS: Do not screw electrical conduit or anything else to the posts, the inner bearing pads slide inside the post, the screws will do bad things where they go through...

Would not go down as was showing in the pics standing erect. I would not screw anything into the posts. Thanks

[rusty]

Put a 6 ft level against  the posts, make sure the thing isn't twisted..
Lifts use plastic bearings in the posts, they don't need grease, generally, but the lift chain and sprocket is supposed to be cleaned and greased occasionally.

If the inside of the posts is rusted that is a problem tho...it will bind up against the slide bearings....

[Chillylulu]

Sounds like a good enough deal.  I'm not familiar with the two arm ones, like I said ours are 4 posts. On some hydraulic devices there are safety stops that keep the device from lowering, even on loss of hydraulics.  Is this one like that? 

The four posters stay up for months with no power.  Like I said, we use them for parking old cars under and on. Cuts parking space in half.

Chilly