luvmy356

I'm in the middle of my garage project (21x46) and I need to mark the locations of the lifts before the floor heating guy comes at the end of the week and starts to lay the tubes. Placing the 4-post units seem straight forward. I'm having trouble trying to figure out where to locate the 2-post unit.

I've seen some lifts right in the middle of the bay, and some of the lifts are in the front 1/3 of the bay. It seems that the asymmetrical lifts are placed closer to the front to allow easier egress out of the car and to accomodate the weight of a front engined car, but does that work with cars that are heavier in back? Or for a rear engine car, you reverse it into the lift?

Since I will have both front and rear engined cars, do I just get a symmetrical lift and place it in the middle of the bay? Or do I get an asymmetrical lift and reverse in a car when necessary?

I'm still deciding between the Direct-Lift 9D or a Bend Pak XPR-10AC or a symmetrical unit if recommended...I will have over 12 foot ceilings in the area where the two post lift will be located.

helmet155

Still use the 1/3 in front orientation for a rear engine car, check rotary lift's product page it has some detail on how the asym. lifts blance point is farther back than a sym. lift.

hth

MarkD

+1 on helmet's comment, need to check lift mfg specs/dimensions.
Also, on an assymetrical lift the arms are normally reversible. This can help avoid the need to back a car in.

matt777

I just spent 2 hours looking at a Rotary Lift symmetrical 2 post lift installation last night. It was a 24 foot deep garage with a 2' bench at the back. The lift looked like it was positioned to put the car close to the bench with room behind the car. He had to use a wall mounted garage door opener. I thought the asymmetrical lift might be interesting as it might be easier to open the doors with a larger car.

Michael S.

I just completed my garage... The auto maintenance bay is 14' wide x 26' deep... I installed a Rotary A10i assymetrical lift and mounted it right in the middle. I love it!

I spoke to my installers before pouring the slab and all that was required was 6" of 5000psi concrete... I went ahead and poured the entire slab at 6", so we were able to locate the lift anywhere we wished. The added cost really was not much... less than $400 for the entire 28 x 30 slab.

The power for the unit comes in from the top, so no special provisions were required other than the thickness and strength of the slab. Trust me when I tell you... You will enjoy having your own lift very much!

ed devinney

I'm in the earlier stages of a similar project - why not just mark out the spots where a lift might go, be it symmetric or asymmetric? All you're talking about is a couple square feet that the tubes need to avoid, it shouldn't materially affect the heat.

Garth S

For an assymetric lift, position the car on the floor where you prefer to work on it .... allowing for the garage door to function when the car is lifted, etc. Then, map out where the assymetric arms contact the cars lift points: this determines where the posts bolt to the slab.

My lift is assymetric, and set such that when the car(s) enters the garage in a forward direction, the shorter assymetric arms contact the front lift points.

EDIT: for example, in the 16W x 24L 'service bay' added to the main garage, the lift posts are placed 11 ft in from the garage door: this leaves 3 ft clearance from the door, and 6 ft in front with the 993 on the lift. Part of the front clearance is for work benches, desk, & tool caddys. This allows our other cars to also fit on the lift .... and as Mike has done (below), there are scribed floor marker lines below the LF wheel hub to allow easy "drive on" lift centering for each visitor.

Mike J

Mine is not centered in the garage, its actually place considering the other uses of the shop (like woodworking) and the various sizes of vehicles that are needed.

One thing I did though, I welded extentions to the cross cables so I can place the posts wider than specified, about 14" wider in total. This gives more room for the 911 doors to open as well as allow for better placement of the lifting arms. This was for a Greg Smith 9000lb two post, which has very heavy duty arms (about2x the size of Rotary). The arms are pretty long and they reach the jack points perfectly that way.

I also spray painted guide lines on the floor to place a 993 property on the lift. I have so many people come and use the lift that the guidelines make it much more efficient.

Check out https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...referrerid=235

Cheers,

Mike

luvmy356

Thanks for the suggestions. I ended up placing the 2-post lift 11 feet from the garage door, which is 9 feet from the front. The slab will be 4.5" inches thick in most places, except the 3'x3' square area where the 2-post will be mounted. In those two locations, I've taken out the insulation, dug a bit deeper, put in extra rebar, so there should be about 7 inches in those two locations.

I ended up ordering the beefier 10,000lb Nationwide/Atlas lift as it offered asymmetric/symmetric arm configuration. I don't know if I need the flexibility, but I have a wide variety of cars so I upgraded just in case. I thought I was going to get the Atlas PV-10 from Greg Smith, but shipping was a lot more to the West coast, so I ordered the Nationwide 10VSM (which is the same as the PV-10) from Best Buy Automotive.