Garage Lifts

[ryancassidy]

Just had one installed on Monday... Got the car on it yesterday and have to get the installer to come back out and adjust it as the lift isn't locking onto the ladder bars correctly. Car will go all the way up, but it doesn't latch when let down in one corner (the corner with the longest cable run) after about Mid rise..... Scary as all get out for sure!!!! its anxiety provoking in general as A.) there is a car in the air.. B.) my first lift and C.) don't drop the damm thing. lol!

For those of you who have 4 post cable lifts...

How taught are your cables when the lift is sitting on the locking mechanisms? Mine are pretty slack.. surprisingly actually.
Any tricks to adjusting? it worked fine before the car was on the lift. When on the locks mid rise, the deck is very level front to back and side to side. So I can't seem to figure out in my head why its not locking higher up.. unless its just the cables being too loose or something.

I'm trying to learn how this works so I can A.) learn to trust it more and B.) learn to adjust/maintain it myself

Ohh as well.. did you bolt yours down or not? It doesn't need to be I know, but there is some movement in the lift and I was thinking once I finalize its exact location, its probably good to bolt it down I'm guessing. I don't have the space to "move the lift around" anyway.

Thanks All!

Ryan

[Tom]

I went through the exact same thing with my HD-9. The solution for me was two-fold: 1) learning how to adjust the lift myself, and 2) getting to know the lift better so I can tell when all 4 locks are engaged and/or disengaged. Definitely worth learning to adjust it yourself -- super easy once you understand it -- see below.

The key is making sure you hear all 4 corners clank past their lock point as it goes up. Ideally, they will all clank in unison, and you'll never have some on and some off the locks (like you did). Once you get to know your lift, you'll get better at making sure you get all 4 corners locked (and unlocked) to avoid that issue. But adjusting it helps a lot.. To lower the lift, you also need to raise it all all 4 locks, so that none of the locks catch on the way down. Again, if all the locks engage in unison, this is a non-issue, but if one or more of the locks are not lined up with the others, you might raise the lift enough to disengage 3 locks, but the 4th one still catches on the way down.

There are two things to adjust. First, you need to adjust the lock ladders in the columns so that the runners are perfectly level when they are resting in a locked position. To do this on an HD-9, you loosen the bolt securing the bottom of the ladder to the column and then adjust it up or down using the nut on top of the column. Sounds like yours is level already though. So the thing you probably need to adjust is the tension on the lifting cables so that all 4 corners are even/level when going up and down. (and therefore all 4 locks engage at or about the same time). To do this, you just listen and look at the locks as you go up, and figure out which locks are engaging late. Turn the nut on top to pull up the late corners until they all clank together.

Here's a before and after video I did. The before was after the authorized installed adjusted it and the after was after I spend an hour or so getting it right.

[Tom]

Oh, as for bolting, we put anchor threads in the concrete and bolted it down finger tight only. That way, the columns can move a bit to avoid any strain when going up and down, but the lift won't be able to dance across the garage in a California earthquake. Bendpak says they don't need to be bolted down, but they give you bolts for that purpose, so I gather they are ok either way. If you bolt it down tight, the columns will strain (and worst case bind up) if the posts are not situated where needed to even out the load. Temps and weight distribution on the lift also tends to make the perfect position elusive, hence my finger tight approach....

[ryancassidy]

Ok.. WOW.. that was bad.. LOL Much better after your updates for sure!

Mine isn't nearly like that. but I think I see what you are saying. I'm about a 1/8" off level side to side with a 4ft level... so its close, but could be closer. So that's first it seems. Then Cable adjustments.

For some reason I'm drawing parallels to the old cable brakes on bikes... you set the pads and then you adjusted the cable and its kind of like getting the same feel on the front/rear brake levers is what I'm gathering so they all feel the same.

Great idea on the bolts.. Didn't think about that, but it makes sense and I like that idea.

Thanks for the feedback and the video Tom!

[Tom]

And that was AFTER the authorized dealer came out a second time to adjust it. Once you get the hang of adjusting and using it, you'll love it. They're really simple once you dig into them. Adjust ladder heights to make level when locked; adjust corner cable tensions to make level when moving. Then just get to know it, so you don't leave a lock hanging.

[ryancassidy]

So I did some playing around with it this afternoon/evening....

With no car on the lift,
All the locks engage all at once now.. Nice solid and loud thud
Lift while on cable tension is dead level left to right on both the front and the back
Lift while on cable tension is about 1/8" higher in the front than the back over the span of the runways.
Front rises ever so slightly first before the rear.
Lift while on the locks is dead level left to right on both the front and the back
Lift while on the locks is dead level front to back on both runways.

I'm running out of adjustments though and the front still picks up first... very slightly before the rear. Like I said though.. out of adjustments so it is what it is I guess.

With a car on the lift.
All the measurements are the same as above so that's good. But there isn't the nice solid and loud thud when the locks engage.. Its a two step locking it sounds like... bang bang.... I'm curious if this is due to the lift being slower with the weight of the car on it maybe?

Either way, the lift goes all the way up and locks at any given point I want. I haven't had any areas where it didn't latch like before

I will definitely be bolting it to the floor like you said Tom. If for nothing else than piece of mind and I might go as far to tighten them down to keep everything square and straight. Its a totally different feeling seeing your ride 6.5ft up in the air as opposed to seeing someone else's ride up that high for sure! LOL

Thanks again for the guidance and the video. I think I'm in a much better spot for sure. If anyone reads anything wrong... or has questions, please let me know. I'm still learning here

Ryan

[Tom]

Most likely, the cables are being pulled tighter with the car on the lift, causing the rear to lag behind the front just enough to give you that bang bang sound. If you start paying attention to lifts in shops, etc., very few of them are adjusted perfectly. The cables also stretch over time, so a perfectly aligned lift won't stay that way forever. In most areas, they want the garage floor to slope 1/8" to 1/4" per foot, so if you are closer to 1/4" that can be nearly a 4" difference front to back. My garage is like that too, so my ladder locks and cable adjustments are max'd out too. If it bugs you, you can get shims made to raise up the rear columns, like these:

https://www.amazon.com/Leveling-2-Post- ... 8420&psc=1

I had planned to have a steel plate cut to put under the rear columns, but haven't gotten around to it.... A lot of people take those super hard white plastic cutting boards and cut/drill them to sit under the columns. Anything that lifts up the rear columns like that will give you that much more room to adjust....

[ryancassidy]

Thanks for that link... I was going to have some plates made as well... but will pick up the shims instead and start with those. The slope in my garage isn't that great... but its definitely there from back to front, I think that and the allowable leeway in the manufacturing process is pushing me to the limit of adjustment.

So how did you plumb your posts? With the lift down and the lift up, there are two slightly different attitudes to the posts.

Maybe I'm over thinking this, but I'm thinking with the car on the lift. go to 1/2 way up. check the plumb of the posts. take the car off. raise the lift to 1/2 height again. If the relation plumb is the same, then shim the posts til they are plumb and bolt them down.

Kind of a best of both worlds... not all the way up and not all the way down is my thought.

[Tom]

I also saw a lift where someone just cut plywood to act as shim platforms. I'd almost feel better about that than the plastic U shims, but those things are made for leveling lifts, so I have to assume they can bear the weight.

As for getting it plumb, we had the tile guy there to drill the holes, in case the porcelain cracked (it didn't), so didn't have a lot of time to obsess on it. We positioned the lift where we wanted it, ran it up and down a few times to make sure the columns were settled in place, then marked the spots, moved the lift, and drilled. Seemed to work just fine, presumably because the columns can still move if needed.

If you haven't got a rolling bridge jack yet, save yourself the trouble and get one. First time you want to get the wheels off the ground using a bottle jack or whatever, you'll want one.

In case it inspires any projects, here are some shots showing how I made and mounted an air reel and tool holder to the lift.

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The HD-9 has a bracket for the hydraulics on both sides of the post, so it can be places as a rear column or front column.

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Online metals supplied steel plates in the needed sizes, although I did need to cut the triangular side supports.

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I use the 3D printer to make drill hole jigs, to get CNC precision on my drill press.

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TIG Practice!

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I obsessed and had two-part paint matched, but later discovered some pretty close rattle can greys....

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Air reel mounted!

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Later I thought to add this. Had I thought of it when I made the bracket, I could have just added the fittings to the original bracket, but I didn't want to mess with the fancy paint, so just added a plate to the underside....

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Quick connects.

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Tidy place to keep tools handy.

[Tom]

And another thing.... my lift came with studs you're supposed to anchor into the floor. It seemed crazy to me to have studs stick out of the floor, so we got long coupling nuts (e.g., nuts that were about 3 inches long) and epoxied those into the holes we drilled. That way we could hold the lift in place with regular bolts, and if we ever needed to move the lift out of the way for whatever reason, we wouldn't have studs getting in the way.