Do you have a lift for your 928? This pic got me thinking
 

What were your tips for installation, ceiling lights, under lift lights, and other things to help showcase your 928 or make for a good 928 perch?


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Yes. Mine's a 4 post also, a Direct Lift Propark 9+ that's big enough to get my wife's Chevy K3500 Dually Crew Cab off the ground (and also park under it), so it's overkill for the 928. She never parks under the lift anyway.

You'll want the rolling jack to go with it otherwise you need to use a jack tray, which is a really bad idea IMO.

I tell folks it's the best tool investment I ever made. I wouldn't think about owning a 928 (or a 944) without one. I spent way too many years laying on gravel under cars to want to do it now.

As for lights, it's really hard to light from above. I used 300W halogen's (6) in the old shop, the new one uses LEDs, which are much, much better. For under lift light I use a portable dual head halogen light stand, I don't think permanent under lift lights would be a real good idea but I also think the halogens are too hot so I'll be converting the light stand to halogen.

My new shop has room for two lifts and I'll be installing a two post and a four post. I agree it's like choosing between box end wrenches are sockets; both have a use. I don't however agree that crawling under a car is a good form of exercise though. :)


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Old Shop. Part car below.

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A 2 post lift is what you need if you intend to work on the car having good access to the underbody. My lift has a fluorescent lamp mounted on each post. The ceiling height need to be 3,7m or 12 feet.
Åke

I had the luxury of designing a purpose-built garage (https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...clubhouse.html). Two-post or four-post? I resolved the dilemma by putting in one of each. With my experience so far, if I could have only one ... I still don't know which would be best. I've done both some work and some storage on the four-post, but most work is on the two-post, from changing wheels to dropping the TT/transmission. For many people, it's a question like "would you rather have a set of open-end wrenches or a socket set?"

Ceiling height was obtained by using scissor trusses. It's common to have a 3:12 pitch on the bottom chords. Perched on 10-foot walls, a 28-foot depth provided enough height. Not 26 feet - my original plan.

I put in a bunch of 50-watt LED bulbs in ordinary bare-bulb fixtures. Cheap and easy. Everything above 8 feet is painted white - a giant reflector. I can't imagine better lighting - except that without a white floor, there's still not enough light underneath the car for my old eyes.

Curt, you are all right, our old eyes need much light. I use a fluorescent working lamp (picture) all the time when I am working under the car. A lift is good but having the car on stands is much better for you. It is good exercise to crawl under the car and up again every time you need a new tool. By the way I have been to Chestertown once but I did not see one single 928. My second cousin is living not far from Forest Lake.
Åke
https://www.clasohlson.com/medias/sy...3373007902.jpg

Damn Ake, I am drooling all over myself looking at both your car and garage. LOL. Very nice. I've always loved both you and your wife's cars.

Friends Lake? Some of the Camp 928 attendees have stayed at the Friends Lake Inn.*

I know what you mean about the exercise factor. But some experts believe we don't need exercise, we just need to be standing up more. If they're right, a lift will be better for me. ;)

While fussing with my lighting design, I felt a little foolish: no matter what, I have to wear a headlamp, which is much cheaper. Instead of all the fancy lighting, I could get two, and keep one on the charger at all times. Maybe a really good one, like my dentist uses.

No it is Forest Lake, a smaller lake to the east of road no. 9 a bit south of Chestertown. You go in Forest Lake Road where my second cousin lives and at the end of that road you have Forest Lake Camp. Think we went for a swim in Forest Lake when we were over there.
When working under the car being in the lift I imagine a head lamp will be in the way hitting the underside of the car all the time. That is what my head is doing and a helmet will not help.
Had a look at your garage thread. Congratulations to an excellent garage.
Åke

Thank you Chris for the kind words. It seems I am working on my wife´s cars all the time and find very little time for my own cars. She has an old Volvo 745 Station Wagon, a BMW Alpina B10 4,6 V8 Station Wagon and the red 928 Strosek Ultra. Like your wife she is very understanding at least as long as I am doing her cars and she does not hesitate to make me pancakes anytime I want - LOL.
A picture of the outside of the garage when we had a Porsche get together. Two of our cars to the left and our friend Thomas´s red 928 DP in the middle of the picture.
Åke
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I have a custom Backyard Buddy lift. It's custom in that it's their taller extended height supports paired with their trailer storage ramps (wider) along with a 2nd set of ramps. This gives me enough width for the wakeboard boat trailer but makes it narrow enough for the 914. Also had them powdercoat it grey and black instead of red and black.

I have dual sliding pneumatic bridge jacks to be able to lift the car off the lift while it's on the lift for brake and wheel work and a rolling drain pan for oil changes.

I added LED lights on 90 degree angle iron, secured by magnets so lighting shines up onto the car I'm working on and down to whatever is parked below it if one is up for storage while the other is being worked on.

Ceiling is 11' 4". 12' would have let me put it all the way up with the 914 on it so I could walk underneath without tipping my head down. Ceilings in the new garage will be 12' and over the lift bay they'll be vaulted without a floor above it. Garage doors have Jackshaft openers and Hi-lift tracks.

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What are the "blue" things under the lift landings?

Noggin Protectors, also known as foam pool noodles. :D

Petza914, where did you get the LED light strips? I need something similar.

Forgot to say if you invest in a two post car lift do avoid lifts having a leaf chain on the floor like the one in the picture. The chain tunnel is always in the way for the car and when moving a jack around. You may trip over the tunnel.
Åke
https://www.asedeals.com/media/catal...ift-tp9kfx.png

I use those on my floor jack handles to protect the sides of the car too

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Kits came from Amazon and I linked 3 of them together with a motion sensor for each of the 2 light runs. When I walk by the lift, all the lights come on automatically and shut off about 4 minutes after they no longer sense motion. If I want to shut them off, they're plugged into the round power block that's magnetically mounted to the lift cross bar bracket and I can just push the power button on that. Since they have to move up and down with the lift, I secured the extension cord in the articulating drag chain you see.

More info on the lighting in post #108 in my Cayenne Turbo S widebody build thread here - - https://rennlist.com/forums/cayenne-955-957-2003-2010/959688-misha-widebody-cayenne-957-turbo-s-project-2.html

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For the overhead door and opener, I've mounted the door tracks so the door closely follows the ceiling. Tracks center about 6" below the ceiling, allowing room for the the door (which sits above the tracks), a screw-drive opener bar, and florescent lighting to fit. At the current home, I installed shaft-drive openers at the end of the torque rods. Much quieter and don't get in the way.

I'm using a MaxJax two-post lift so I can move it out of the way when it isn't being used. The pump is wall-mounted, with the hoses routed to the areas next to where the posts stand when in use. The rest of the time the hoses roll up under cabinets and out of the way.

Main work-bay lighting is 9 surface-mount quad-tube florescent fixtures in the space. Would have gone with recessed mount pans except for loss of fire barrier and R value. Would have gone with LED panels except they weren't bright enough at the time. Walkway lighting is LED cans, so no need to light the whole work-bay like a Monday Night Football stadium when it's just a space.

Florescent and LED work-lights get the duty underneath the lift, supplemented sometimes by head-mounted LED lights. The floor is a light gray porcelain tile, giving reasonable reflected light underneath. It's also really easy to keep clean, a good thing because it's pretty easy to get dirty too. I tried a couple of the LED magnetic work-lights underneath, but found that there's no good way to hang/mount them to get good light but avoid getting blinded by them half the time. The distributed LED strips look like a good way to go for the four-post lifts. They are way inexpensive and easy to install. I use them for under-cabinet workbench lighting where they are superb.

The two post lifts with the track on the floor do take some getting used to. Tripping has not been a problem but pushing the car forward and backward takes extra effort given the bump on the floor. Overall, two post lifts use less space than the four post lifts but both have compromises. Access into and out of the vehicle is compromised with the two post, but working on the wheels and underside of the vehicle is easy because there is nothing in your way. One of each (four post and two post) would be the ultimate solution but I'm not to that point because space is not a problem... YET! :)

I am using a variety of lights depending on what I'm doing on the car. If there is one thing that makes working on the underside of a vehicle difficult it is having light shining into your eyes and not up into those dark overhead spaces where you want it. My solution so far is to have a variety of cordless rechargeable units and headlights available as well as a pull down corded unit. I really like Petza's idea of having the lights on a motion sensor and will give some thought to making one of those set-ups for the two post arms.

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It is good to have unlimited headroom when doing projects like motor mounts/major cleaning, oil pan gaskets, torque tubes, etc. This shot (below) was taken before the major re-organization and painting of my garage began.

Lighting for this project was mostly by headlight and small magnetic battery powered units... Constantly fiddling with lighting was a problem...
The new magnetic LED rechargeable light sticks I have now are much better but I have not taken pictures of them.

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In some ways the super strong overhead lighting creates challenges; glare from above and shadows underneath.

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.)

Could you expand on that? What's "the door problem"? Can you give an example of an asymmetrical two post? I'm planning to install a two post alongside my four post in the new shop but I've never actually used one.

Also, about overhead light; I've mounted my upper lighting on the walls slightly above the top of the lift using downward pointing LED fixtures ( ), 3 per side, to reduce stark shadowing under the car, it works pretty well compared with ceiling mounted lights.

Thanks,

Will facilitate the opening of the doors.
Åke
https://www.gregsmithequipment.com/A...Two-Post-Lifts

What lift is that???


Ok, guess I'll share my details since I got called out in the original post (that's my car) :p

First off, don't get too caught up on brand names unless you are buying a Rotary or one of the other professional brands. Many of the lifts are the same re-labelled for different companies. The "Rotary Revolution" is just a re-labelled Direct Lift and in many markets more money. Rotary bought out Direct Life several years ago.

After two months and dozens of phone calls, I settled on the lift based on the person selling it. Every other shop I called had to make phone calls to the ware house, determine shipping expenses (to their site, not mine) and other hassles since they didn't keep much in stock. Through sheer luck I discovered a lift re-seller 30 miles from my house (not sure how I missed him in my research, he needs to work on his marketing) with over $100,000 in inventory in stock at all times. Five lifts on display and based on other local people who've worked with him, assistance with installation if needed. He's installed quite a few of his products so a couple times I was puzzled, he was quick to help over the phone (I never expected him to come over for free though, and thankfully that wasn't needed).
He also has a two person team if installation is needed for around $500.

In the end I settled on this unit:
https://titanlifts.com/4-post/titan-...lt-4-post-lift

Installation isn't difficult, but very heavy so plan on having 4 strong people. We made do with three and a cherry picker.

Next challenge was the garage door. As you can see in my photo the opener is very close and the garage door handle is less than 1" off the hood when opening. My plan was to install a high lift kit and Liftmaster jack-shaft style opener. Just like my saga finding a lift supplier, local garage door companies were baffled with the ides of installing a high lift kit. The one place familiar with the process quoted me $1,300 with the opener and is booked out several months.

After much research I found this outfit out of Chicago that sells a DIY high lift kit:
https://ddmgaragedoors.com/parts/hig...-kit-quote.php

They were very helpful and I plan to use them again with my other door. One thing to note, if you need a new spring shaft (most will not) opt to source a one piece locally versus the two piece they supply.

As for lights, when we bought this house the garage was very dim. With multiple other projects I needed a quick solution and settles on 3,500 - 4,000 lumen (varies by brand) screw in florescent bulbs similar to these:
https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/6052/FC65-S65.html
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Feit-Ele...65TN/303327451

Since then LED's have really taken off so now I have 3 of these 10,000 lumen bulbs mixed in:
https://www.menards.com/main/electri...586-c-7482.htm

They come in less power models too, I prefer the white light from the LED's over the florescent and plan to slowly convert over. As for lights under the lift, haven't gotten that far yet.


Current setup with the garage door modified and new opener. I still have to clean-up the wiring, angle iron, and install new ceiling receptacles in the attic for the opener.






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I got this one: https://www.bendpak.com/car-lifts/tw...ifts/xpr-10as/

You pull into such a lift so that your mirror is roughly aligned with the column. That means you can swing your door as wide as you wish to get out, and it's far more convenient when access to the car is needed when you're working on it; for example, pulling the hood release. The forward lift arms are shorter than the aft arms, hence the term "asymmetrical".

Here's a product idea: a spray can of temporary white stuff. You spray the things you're working on underneath the car, so you don't have the oily-black-on-greasy-black visibility problem. Some sort of water soluble white paint?

Thanks, that answers several other questions I had, especially required concrete slab thickness (4" min.), I poured the new shop with 6" steel re-enforced concrete. One thing about the 4 posts I like is they don't need to be bolted into the concrete so they "float" during an earthquake. Being in central California I've always been a bit edgy about 2 posts so I'm probably still going to need some more re-assurance. The transmission shop I use has about 6 two post overhead style lifts and they aren't worried about earthquakes so I suppose they've been convinced, I just need to know what convinced them...

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

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Maybe I shouldn't have used the word professional, but wasn't sure how to put it. I know people who spent double the money on a Rotary just because of the perception of quality with added cost. For the average hobbiest, it's a waste of money IMO.

Just saying don't get too caught up with brand names since there is some re-labeling going on. The backyard buddy is a great unit, friend of mine has one. The reason why I like the open hangers is adjustability. With some more tweaking I should be able to gain another 2 inches or so in lifting height before the 79 gets crushed. At first I wasn't too sold on the design until I visited the Porsche dealer and saw their 4-post lift for doing alignments was the same design (different brand).

The only reason why I went with the XL version of this lift is lifting height. Even-though I cannot go all the way up with a car installed, empty it goes high enough to park my Yukon underneath it. Someday I plan to install re-engineered trusses to gain another couple of feet of lift.

In Europe we have the usual Chinese stuff and the Danish company Stenhöj. I have a 2-post lift made by Stenhöj also used in all Volvo dealer workshops around the country.
Åke
https://www.autopstenhoj.com/en/maestro-35-981.html

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.

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.

Can't fool me. That's a beer fridge over there on the right...

But what's the exhaust pipe coming out of it about?

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.


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I have one of these lights, due to a Ridgid obsession.

Even misspelled, most guys have a Ridgid obsession.

For lights, I have a handful of these, including one in every travel tool bag: https://www.harborfreight.com/215-lu...ght-63935.html