I've been thinking about making my own, human powered, hoist. In researching the internets, I came across this lift in the UK! Very clever, I must say. It uses Hi-Lift (offroad/farm) jacks to raise each corner, and is fairly portable.


Hamer Car Lift

For myself, I'm leaning now towards a four post frame which would essentially be huge stands, that would work along with liftbars. The main goal is to get the car high enough, safely, so that I can park another car underneath if need be.

 

do you have to run around to the 4 corners and jack them in sequence??

or are they somehow connected?

 

One jack at a time. Probably not quite as fast as a 3-phase, 3HP electro-hydraulic lift.

From the FAQ page:

Q. Can 1 person operate the lifter.
A. Yes! Although it would be quicker with 2.

 

Good idea - but I would really like to see interconnected cranks, at least the sides, so it raises up evenly without running circles around the car. Chain driven sprockets?


Note the pic shown, the lift is under a car that you can probably lift up by hand without a jack. I think 928s weigh a bit more.

 

On the main page, they show it lifting Land Rovers. The Hi-Lifts are rated for 7000lbs (at one foot), each. I couldn't find a rated capacity on the (homemade) website.

I'm not sure if one person would be heavy enough to lever two jacks at once?

 

Here at work we use a couple of Regal post lift tables to move heavy things (~ 100 to ~300 lbs) around.

http://www.prestolifts.com/page112.html

4 worm-drive posts, each with a driver with a sprocket.
One long chain runs around the 4 sprockets, and is tensioned on a 5th sprocket.
5th sprocket is turned by a bevel gear.
Bevel gear is turned by crank.
Crank can be turned direct-drive (slowly), or by another short-chain and sprocket setup to double the speed.

Simplify: split into two seperate two-post units, one on each side of car.
Eliminate bevel by having crank mounted vertically, driving short chain always.

Beef up: need worm drives that can hold 4K lbs.

 

I don't know... those pads don't give me a lot of confidence.

 

More impressive when you see a LandRover on it...

 

I'm in agreement with Andrew. I want some way to transfer lateral forces from the posts to the plates . I live in a rock and roll state (Kalifornia) that has at times been known for sudden lateral displacement of masses over extremely short periods of time. This looks like a workable method but I would go to work with a torch and weld in some extra insurance against early termination of
my existence on this Earth. When I have a car on jack stands in my garage, I place extra stands and keep the jack under the car. Guess I'm just a bit too cautious ...........but does anyone remember the photo of the Bay Bridge in the last big quake? Ugly at best.

 

Wait a minute. This costs £1175. That's $2337 for 36in lift. Decent Chinese 4-posters like mine are at $1600. 45 seconds and my car is up against the ceiling.

 

By the time you get done screwing around with this, you'll pretty much obviate any $ benefit you might see over a more common commercial two-post or ramp lift. The commercial lifts offer such simple features as one-handed lifting, the rachet brake/safety stop goodies that keep the car from falling on you, things like that. IMO, the best combo would be a two-post assymetric with a set of drive-on ramps that could be attached to the lift arms. That would make car storage on the lift a practical option. As Ron so eloquently reminded us kally-forn'-eans, the ground moves here. If I'm serious about my lift installation, I remind myself that I'm in UBC zone 5 with an importance factor of 10 when it comes to seismic calcs and mrs dr bob's breadwinner under the car.

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I have some bookmarks on Bend-Pak lifts since they are just up the road in Santa Paula. They are now about $1k higher thn many of the imported lifts that others here have mentioned. I guess if I could get a rebate instead of the "free shipping" option it would get closer, but it's awfully hard to compete with a $1500 imported lift dropped off in the driveway. Where's my America product loyalty going these days? I wonder if they use any of that extra-lead Barbie-Doll paint on the imported lifts...

 

I know people have investigated shipping lifts from the US, don't forget there's no Harbor Freight here for us.

 

We get our cheap lifts from many companies that import them from China. Harbor Freight doesn't sell 4-posters. We can even get American made lifts for about with that UK manual lift is selling for. Why aren't you guys importing cheap Chinese stuff and ruining your local economy like us? Instead, you're making Rube Goldberg contraptions. I can just see the car owner getting dizzy running around in circles doing each corner 1 click at a time.

 

Hey, how can you go wrong with a "creeper" like this one:

 

Ron: That actually is rather nice.