Car lift for a home garage use.

[boonies]

I have the max-jax two post lift. My garage is low clearance made worse by heating ducts and garage door hardware (need to replace with a jackshaft opener).

I have an older home and the concrete was just below the minimum thickness and no rebar so I made a complete mess and saw-cut the cement, dug out the hole far deeper than required, made rebar cages that are epoxied into the existing pad and then mixed and poured the cement. A bigger job than expected, but happy with the lift set-up. When I move again I plan to move to a four-post lift. When I was still working our fleet shop had a mix of two and four post lifts and I really enjoyed working on the four post. All of those had a front and rear bridge jack so it was easy to lift from underneath when needed.

 

[CamayroZ]

DELETED

 

[Ohmess]

I have two commercial 8000 lbs Rotary lifts and one of the very first Rotary 4-posts when they were starting the light-duty versions. Made in the USA was a must for me, and all are 20 years old.

For safety reasons, I would like to recommend to all of you to bolt down your 4-post lifts. As an absolute minimum bolt it to the ground with 1 bolt X 4 pads = 4 bolts so that it does not slide around. My 4-post is anchor bolted to the ground with 4 bolts x 4 pads = 16.

Why do I say this?

I used to be a cowboy (like some of you) and had the 4-post lift just sitting on the garage floor. I did that for 5-years. Until one day, I brought home my freshly restored car that had just received a custom made 2.5" exhaust. I lined up the car on the lift with my wife standing at the end of the lift watching me. The collector on the exhaust was too low, and it hooked to the cross-bar at the bottom of the lift (see image) and my car pushed the entire lift towards my wife and the wall. This was really really really bad, and I almost crushed my wife... Shortly afterwards, I called a professional to bolt the sucker down, I did not even want to do it myself...
View attachment 218195

About four years ago, I had a conversation with Rotary solutions about moving my lift. They told me anchoring the lift to the floor is not required, and that many of their customers move their lifts from time to time. This is why people buy dollies designed specifically to allow the owner to move the lift around. I understand that you feel more comfortable having your lift bolted down based on your experience, but I don't think those of us who use our four post lifts without anchoring them to the floor are "cowboys".

 

[CamayroZ]

About four years ago, I had a conversation with Rotary solutions about moving my lift. They told me anchoring the lift to the floor is not required, and that many of their customers move their lifts from time to time. This is why people buy dollies designed specifically to allow the owner to move the lift around. I understand that you feel more comfortable having your lift bolted down based on your experience, but I don't think those of us who use our four post lifts without anchoring them to the floor are "cowboys".

Yes, I agree, and I should not have used the word cowboy. And I also should not have also not made any recommendations on an internet forum! I am not a forum guy anyhow. Signing off for good. Good luck.