Need Help With Lift

Hi -

I would like to put a lift in my garage. The purpose would not be to work on my car but rather for storage. That is I would like to put a lift in one bay and lift a car and drive one underneath the lift.

What is the best lift for this? What is the ceiling height I need? Thanks!!!!!!!!!

~JC

 

12' to walk under (if you're 6' and stacking "low" cars) if you have side-mount openers (not centrally located chain drives; the garage door folks also installed my tracking about 5-6" from ceiling as that's where the door retracts to when open. This will matter unless you have outward opening or barn-door sliders, etc).

14' is the ideal to walk under most cars. However, I've seen it as low as 9.5' for an NSX and '60's Alfa spider. Those were both "low," but with normal opening doors... if you have "Billionaire Doors," you need the underside of the lift to go at least to 6' as many of those doors will smack otherwise.

I have one of each of these and like them both as each one fit perfectly in the space I was working with:

• Revolution 4-post, 9k weight. (but more importantly, 9' of "spread" between the columns... very easy to drive through daily as the garage door is also 9' wide.
• GTX c6, 6k weight. (single post - no worries about posts. You do need thick base concrete slab to anchor and your passenger side (if nose-in, and the way you should, otherwise you're trying to squeeze out between a large single post and the driver's door!) will have to drive over about a 3-4" high (but ramped on each side) lower balance arm (also anchored to the concrete) with your front passenger wheel each time you go in/out. My low cars all made it without issue since the support has a ramp on each side of it to go up and over.)

Note - the single post was almost double the heavy duty 4 post. But I didn't want 8 posts to work around and we had a bump-out in the front of the garage to support the single post perfectly.

I've seen Hoovie's garage have one of these, and if I was building a house/garage from scratch, would consider as you get a lot of storage in one package:
https://www.bestbuyautoequipment.com/bendpak-pl-6kt-triple-indep-platform-parking-lift-p/bendpakpl-6kt.htm

Good luck to you!

 

awesome thanks so much. i believe my garage will only have 10ft high ceilings so i may be sol

 

10ft should be ok.
Depends on the cars, there’s some formula that adds up the heights of the cars and “x” inches between the care as a total height needed.
I have a 4 post HD9 Bendpak, works great.


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Awesome thanks. I have a 3 car garage that I need to fit four cars into. 2007 911S daily, 458, F12, Evo. I am assuming 458/Evo can be bunk buddies.

 

and thanks for the info on the lift

 

Depending on your height, you may have to duck or get brained, but you can pretty much pick your least used to go up and park one of the other low ones under it and be AOK. (but remember to replace the central chain drive with side-jack openers if you don't have those already to pick up those last inches.)

I had to do the same thing: 5 #'s of S in a 3# bag!

Enjoy,

 

good point thx

 

Actually in terms of height i managed to get away with two low cars in a relatively low roof space. TR/308 is about 113cm high and the ramp i bought has a 10cm deck. It is only used for storage, though, with very little work done on the ramp.

 

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Wowww, how did you get your wide TR on the top lift?
I’m always wary of driving wide cars (MurcieSV) onto the top lift. Those triangular metal pieces near the post make it tricky.
Sad story, first few times had a car that I didn’t drive straight onto the top lift and the triangular metal piece shaved the whole rocker panel.


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Sports cars should have the lower heights.
Measure the height of each sports car that you want to stack, then add 8-10 inches of space necessary for the runners and safety equipment in between. Total should be less than tour garage height.
Additionally, if you have a top mount garage door opener, you will have to convert it to a side mount garage door opener.


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The TR is tight but it just clips the very low part of the triangle so it is fine. It is a small ramp though and the TR is wide for an old car
Usually the tr is on the bottom as the 308 is used less (road legal race car )

 

Thought this might help--I have a bendpak HD9. I store my 812 above my M550i. The ceiling height is about 10 ft (give or take a few inches as its above 10ft near the garage door and below 10 ft on the other side. The garage door rail is 9 ft 8 inches off the ground. Its a squeeze, but doo-able. Let me know if you need any other measurements from the picture.
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No. I had a four post in a 9'6" garage. Could put one on the lift and one under, low cars like ferraris lotus etc

 

10' will work.

Basically you need to know the height of the cars you will normally put on and under then lift. Add in the height of the ramps/treads that the upper car sits on and then make sure you have 6" or so above the upper car because you typically have to raise the lift a little bit to release the locking mechanism . At 10' you'll be fine tho, just cant walk under the upper car without stooping

 

I have a 4 post lift in my garage. There’s a wood beam that goes across my garage, so I moved the garage door opener to one side of my garage, allowing the F430 to go on the top of the lift,backwards. My wife has to help me back the car onto the top rack of the lift.
Like another poster, 10 lbs in a 5 lb box.


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If you backed the Ferrari on, you can perhaps get another 6+" (another "notch" or two) of lift height if you wanted. I found that out with the SLS pre 8c and now always back on since the hood's are much lower than the tails on both of those.

 

The first thing you should do is contact a reputable garage door company in your area. Ask them about the Liftmaster side mount operator which takes away all of the track and mechanism in the garage center. Then ask about a high lift track system for the door. These 2 items are what allowed me to install a 4 post lift. A byproduct of the high lift door track is that the door does not travel into the garage the same distance as a portion of the door is now stowed vertically.

 

If you feel adventurous you can do a DIY install yourself like I did in my house garage. Amazon for the Liftmaster opener and DDM Garage Door for the high lift kit for the door. It was about $650 all in a few years ago for everything. I had lifts in two of my former homes with 10' and they were fine with the height of the cars we are talking about. I was fortunate with my current home having 12' which is a piece of cake. I have a detached "man cave" that I built with a 12' ceiling and have two Bend Pack HD-9's in there as well. A man never has enough garage space (at least that is what I tell my wife ).

 

One item to note regarding garage lifts is that having the driver's door of the car underneath the lift facing the interior of the garage versus the far wall of the garage will make it easier to get into resulting in higher use. The picture above is perfect.

 

There are several other threads in the forum that might be helpful, too.

 

I get it I need to clean out my garage!!!!

 

Looks great to me! Down to unfinished drywall. My garage is similar to yours as I am considering 2 x 6 pine tongue and groove this summer if lumber prices fall.