Portable Lifts

[Tnhl1989]

So over the weekend I went to my friend's autobody shop. He has two different lifts. One is a drive on lift that I am accustom to. The other is a four point lift. The four point lift seemed to be quite a interesting lift when I saw him use it. The reason why I wanted to raise the car was to check the bushings and sub frame of the car again. Everything looked good besides the differential bushing which was cracked. I might want to change it during the reunion. Not really sure at the moment. So the lift is one of the following below.

http://www.bestbuyautoequipment.com/...ard6000mrl.htm



http://www.bestbuyautoequipment.com/...cadet-6000.htm



My review is that it works great to do any suspension work. It does cover the middle of the car and doesn't provide a lot of room that way. It raises to about 5ft tall so it's enough to do a good amount of major repairs if you are in a stool chair otherwise your back would hurt. I forgot to take some photos of how much of the center the lift actually covers. I'll see if my friend can send me a photo of it.



The photos above show that roughly how much it covers. One side we used 2"x4" while the other we didn't. I'm about 5'8" so I had to bend over while observing the underside. He is about 5'6" or so. If I had the money and space I would get myself one of these lifts.

[330i ZHP]

two reasons I did not go this route

I have a rubber based floor and the mechanism would likely have damaged the floor

and

it would be impossible to do trans/clutch work and likely exhaust work/driveshaft

[sillieidiot]

yeah those are nice, but you can't do any work in the middle of the car at all. i chose to go with a maxjax lift instead. it's just like a normal 2 post lift. but it only goes halfway which is alike 4ft or something. good enough. most often times, i don't even take it all the way up.

[330i ZHP]

I still haven't installed my maxxjax

[UdubBadger]

yeah i've been drooling over maxjax for a while now, seems like the best route.

[sillieidiot]

I still haven't installed my maxxjax

lol don't worry, that's happened to me too. i bought it and didn't install it for like a year and a couple of months. then when i got around to installing it, it turned out that my concrete that was poured years ago was poor quality. there were a bunch of air pockets which made the anchors spin and lift up. had to dig it all up and re-pour it. but I went ahead and used concrete studs instead of the crappy anchors they give you.

the only thing i don't like about the maxjax is that the lift isn't even. it's off by a couple of inches sometimes. even after you bleed it and reset everything, a few cycles later it happens again. and sometimes when you raise it all the way up, it gets stuck lol i was sweating balls the first time my car got stuck and couldn't get it down :

[aurelius]

I don't have one of these but am intrigued:

http://www.ezcarlift.com/

[330i ZHP]

I looked at those too - great for tires, oil changes and brakes - but wouldnt be good for clutches, trans, exhaust..and the drive over is HIGH and I would have to take a lot of time and effort to make, mount and move around ramps to get my wagon (used to be wagon and sedan were too low) onto the unit

[330i ZHP]

also - I have a rubber flooring surface in my garage - this would rip that up

[330i ZHP]

triple post - too lazy to edit

I WILL have to use Race Ramps to get the wagon up enough for the MAXXJAXX arms to get under my car