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Good info Hacker. The Backyard Buddy 4-post I have is different construction than all other 4-post lifts. Maybe this one falls into your "one of the other professional brands" comment, but to my knowledge, it's the only 4-post lift that uses closed uprights and closed.ramp attachments that ride on those uprights. All other 4-post lifts I've seen use an open channel vertical upright, and is the reason I bought the Backyard Buddy, that and they were willing to customize it for me. Was it a lot more expensive yes, but I had a very specific use case with a lot of requirements and I liked the way the lift locks and the safety catch setup. In the event of a cable or lock failure, where the furthest one corner could fall was to the next notch
Backyard Buddy pioneered the 4 post closed sleeve design. IMO, it's the safest and most rigid design.
About 10 years ago, some other company built a similar design. They were out of the midwest, and may have been ex-BYB employee(s). They went under.
The next one on the block with a similar design is Advantage brand lifts. They are similar, but a bit cheaper than BYB. There's also another newcomer called wildfire, or something, which ripped the design.
One critical thing I can say about these lifts, is to use a longer and lighter set of ramps. I got mine from Reverse Logic. Fred in Philly gave me a deal on the ramps at Carlisle. They are 4' in length and super light.
He's got the best prices and service on Race Ramps. Here's a link, if it helps: https://www.reverselogic.us/race-ramps.html
Looking at the Greg Smith cite mentioned above, it seems the cost distance between the 2 and 4 post lifts has closed up a bit since I bought mine, but realistically I think the 4 posts are still more expensive since they really do require the "optional" $700 rolling jack if you want to use them for anything but parking cars. I think, practically that still makes them about $1000 more than a mid/high end 2 post. Any recent experience out there to support that? I bought my lift almost 10 years ago before the price of steel doubled.
Those thinking about a two-post lift should only consider the asymmetrical kind. They solve the door problem. (I might save someone a lot of trouble installing the common Bendpak version - the instructions can lead you astray: The post with the pump must go on the left as you stand in the doorway. Do NOT install it in the narrow configuration. Only careful reading saved me from these pitfalls.)
Correct! Symmetrical two post lift arms put the center of the door next to the lift post and you have to squeeze in and out of the car risking dings even if you pad the posts.
When we moved my lift recently, the installer and I discussed shortening one set of the arms to make the lift more friendly to use. This thread convinced me to get motivated, do it, and make it asymmetrical.
Not something you cut off with a hack saw, need to find a metal cutting band saw.
I wonder if I could get a pair of longer arms to make the MaxJax more assymetric. :O My original lift shopping had a 9k Bend-Pak assymetric in the crosshairs, but I have to share the workbay with daily use cars most of the time. Even the assymetric columns are "in the way" when not using the lift. Coming from seismic SoCal, the idea of storing a car on a 2-post just never appealed to me. The MaxJax is the best compromise for me anyway. My little home-garage "workbay" is not in the same league as you folks with multi-bay workshops. For a couple decades I kept a rented workspace for toys, but life patterns changed. Now everything is compressed into the much smaller shared space, and the interesting toys ended up in geograhically-distributed storage.
I have a Bendpak HD9 four post lift with two bridge jacks on it. I installed it in 2010 and use it frequently for many different types of vehicles. I am extremely happy with it. For me, the four post is ideal for the following reasons:
Most work that I do on a vehicle does not require it to be off of its wheels. I can simply drive the car onto the lift and raise it. No messing with arms.
When I do need the car to be off of its wheels, I can raise it up and place the bridge jacks where I want them while standing. No getting on my knees and peering under the car.
It works well when I want to park a car on the lift and another under the lift to make more room in the garage.
The bridge jacks have adapters to let me support a transmission or motor or anything else while changing mounts, etc.
The bridge jacks allow me to pick the 928 up by the a-arms when removing the wheels. That means that when I replace tires and do an alignment, I don't have to settle the suspension.
The bridge jacks can pick up a vehicle by its lift points, axle, frame, a-arms, or anything else that you can imagine. It's been extremely useful for me.
It is very stable and less risk of the vehicle falling when the uninitiated inevitably put more lateral force into breaker bars than they should. Friends require more supervision with a two post lift
It has wheels so I can move the entire lift around in the shop to either clean or rearrange things.
The "ramps" that the car sits on are very convenient tool and parts shelves while working on things under the car.
I can stand on the "ramps" to get to something under the hood while the vehicle is in the air and someone else is underneath assisting.
You can get any car with any clearance onto the lift and raised up. Sometimes you need to use wood boards to get the car a little higher for the lowest of cars.
For lighting, I've found that no matter what, I always need movable light under the car. I have a polyaspartic floor that is light colored, and bright lights in the ceiling and white walls. It's enough ambient light under the car for oil changes, but not for detailed work. What I've ended up doing is buying several of these:
When they were for sale at Costco for $20 a piece. I have two that are just as you see in the photo which rest very nicely on the "ramps" if needed. And then another two that I rewired and mounted on an old halogen work light stand like this one:
The stand mounted LED lights are my go to lighting for just about everything. Adjustable height, bright, aimable. With those, I never have lighting limitations under the car, in the engine compartment, or on any of my other projects. I'm sure that you can find reasonably priced work light stands with LEDs mounted to them now. When I wired mine up, there weren't many of them and they were prohibitively expensive.
You can't beat natural light, though. If you can position your lift near the door and have it open, that will give you the best light.
I installed my used Rotary assymetrical all by my lonesome at over 70 years of age. No big deal. Use your brain not your muscle. C0st me $1200 no tax, no delivery charge.
I love it. Use it for tractors and lawnmowers too.
I have one of these lights, due to a Ridgid obsession. It can be mounted on any tripod or light stand with 1/4-20 threads. I discovered the other day that it can be hooked up directly to 120VAC. But as I said, nothing beats a headlamp (with a rechargeable battery).
Photography light stands are generally useful; every garage should have an assortment. There is a wide variety of LED lights that can be mounted on them. Not just for working - it's been proven that better photos lead to better responses to calls for help. I'm always stunned to read calls for help that begin "sorry for the bad photos".
Old guys need single vision glasses ($8 from the online companies like Zenni). Zenni has an option for no-line bifocals meant for close-up work, which might be useful. I'm going to try to get these, but ask that the lenses be installed upside-down.
12-09-2018, 05:32 PM
