Author Topic: This Type of Lift - Is It Ok for Our Cars? (Read 12209 times)

Garry · « **Reply #25 on:** July 03, 2018, 23:11:01 »

now i like that one but i dont think you can get in Australia.

wwheeler · « **Reply #26 on:** July 04, 2018, 03:01:14 »

That is really innovative but like Pawel said, requires a lot of storage space. The MaxJax towers will unbolt from the floor and can be moved around. They can be stored in a corner in the garage. Without that feature, I would have no room for a lift.

Pawel66 · « **Reply #27 on:** July 04, 2018, 06:48:54 »

It is all about trade-offs. Max Jax is great, but requires min 10cm concrete. I do not know if I have that and wil ltake no risk. Also: pulling out two heavy columns and bolting them each time you need a lift is a bit of a work for small jobs.

Typical scissor lift is just there on the floor. Or, in cae of Quick Jack, you just lie two flat plates on the floor. Trade-off is - limited access from the sides and, in case of plate lift, limited number of cars you can lift.

Garry · « **Reply #28 on:** July 04, 2018, 07:03:14 »

I am in the process of building a new garage and just waiting for planning approval at the moment. Each bay is 7 x 5 meters and there are three of them so space is not a problem but overall height is. I will be limited to 3.4 meters so a smaller tower is needed.

Pawel66 · « **Reply #29 on:** July 05, 2018, 09:19:38 »

Your garage will be lovely!

If I had no constraints with space, I wold look at lift options closer to yours...

mnahon · « **Reply #30 on:** July 10, 2018, 12:06:44 »

Hi Pawel,

I bought a Quickjack yesterday and will assemble it and give it a try this weekend on the Pagoda. I'll let you know how it goes. My space is also quite constrained and I felt that realistically, on balance, the Quickjack was likely to be the best solution.

Meyer

Pawel66 · « **Reply #31 on:** July 10, 2018, 12:16:05 »

Thank you This will be a very valuable input! Which size did you buy?

mnahon · « **Reply #32 on:** July 10, 2018, 12:34:41 »

5000 lb. This unit was on sale locally and gives me the option to lift some heavier cars than the 3500 lb unit which would be sufficient for the Pagoda. One issue with the smaller unit might be the lifting point spread (distance from front to rear support points).

Pawel66 · « **Reply #33 on:** July 10, 2018, 15:37:56 »

The distance was exactly what I was after. Have not measured it yet.

mnahon · « **Reply #34 on:** July 15, 2018, 03:10:47 »

Hi Pawel,

I assembled the lift and lifted the car with it today. It mostly worked well. I ran into one problem: the locking bar on one side does not swing freely when the car is on the lift (it does when the car is not on the lift) so that the locking function does not work on that side. I figured I'd call it a day for today, because I was getting tired, and see what I can do tomorrow.

One thing I noticed: on the right side, the lift mechanism ends up quite close to the exhaust, so you have to be careful how you position it to avoid touching and possibly damaging the exhaust. I lifted at the front on the frame rails, and at the rear on the front attachments of the rear trailing arms. I was pleasantly surprised that there was a fair amount of height under the car with the lift at its highest position, so you'd be able to work reasonably comfortably---lying down, of course. But the lift mechanisms do take up a lot of space, so you could only access the central third of the car, which is still useful because that's where most of the important bits are.

Hopefully I can sort out the problem tomorrow and I'll take measurements and pictures for you then.

Pawel66 · « **Reply #35 on:** July 15, 2018, 06:33:08 »

Thanks for that!

I hope it is something small with the lock on the right side and you will get rid of the issue quickly. When I Google "quick jack not locking under load" I get a video underlining that the locking arms need to move freely, cannot be tightened.

I did the measurements yesterday and see that both 3000lb and 5000lb would fit Pagoda, so my choice is probably also going to be the 5000lb as a more versatile one. Thank you also for the tip with the exhaust!

On the space occupied - I think if we suport the car in the places you mentioned, this space restriction would be the same with any plate-type lift. That is why I was wondering if it was ok to support the car in 4 spots just behind the factory jack spots - on the attached picture we have red circles, that were generally agreed to be ok on the forum with two of them being behind rear factory jack points. Can the front ones be used as well (white circles with question marks).

If not - we could lift the car with supports being under the full line circle or dotted line circle in the back and frames in the front. I suppose lift being at an angle is not the isue (white lines).
If yes - we could lift the car with supportds in the rear being the full line or dotted line circles in the rear and frame or white circle in the front.

I know this is every day thing for professionals, but I just do not want to damage anything.

mnahon · « **Reply #36 on:** July 15, 2018, 19:50:57 »

Hi Pawel,

I did not make much headway today. I can see approximately the cause of the problem, but not the solution. The fact that the left side lock bar does not swing freely is not due to overtightening. The locking bar is attached to its pivot shaft, and the pivot shaft passes from one side of the lift to the other, passing through the end of the hydraulic piston along the way. So for the lock bar to rotate, the shaft has to rotate.

When the lift is not loaded, the shaft does rotate freely. But when it's under load, it binds up, presumably due to the force exerted by the piston. Some pictures below. I tried greasing the shaft, but that didn't help.

I don't really feel I should be trying to troubleshoot a brand new lift, so I've sent them a message and await a call back. We'll see what they say. I can't imagine I'm the first person to ever have this problem.

I'll let you know when this is resolved and I start using the lift.

Regarding jacking points: I'm reluctant to use the solid-circled points at the rear (just in front of the rear wheels) because my car has some rust there. Until I get around to getting that checked out to find the severity, I'd rather not put large loads on that area. So for now, I'll stick to the points I'm using.

Logically, it seems you should be able to support the car on both those outboard locations where the jack support covers are located. There have been pictures on prior threads (I remember some from Scottcorvette) showing the interior construction of those locations. The front jack points and rear jack points seem to be of similar construction. So if you can support at the rear point, you should also be able to support at the front point.

Regarding your angled configuration, the Quickjack instructions say that you shouldn't use an angled configuration; the two mechanisms are supposed to stay parallel. They don't say why.

Pawel66 · « **Reply #37 on:** July 15, 2018, 20:26:41 »

Hi,

Thank you for an update and comments!

Hope they will fix it quickly. Troubles happen, point is how they help reslove them. Let's see....

Pawel

mnahon · « **Reply #38 on:** July 21, 2018, 13:10:06 »

Hi Pawel,

Here's my weekend update: the lift is now working, no thanks to Quickjack.

From last Sunday to Friday, I tried contacting Quickjack. I tried by phone, and through their on-line request form; many times. On Friday morning, I finally got a response asking for what the problem was. I replied quickly with all the details, and have not heard back since.

In parallel to this, I looked into returning the system to the store where I bought it. That was looking messy. They wanted the entire system returned; not just the one defective ramp. Packing up and returning the whole system would have taken a few hours.

So I took things into my own hands this morning and diagnosed and fixed the problem. Earlier, I had not wanted to try to do this because I felt I shouldn’t be trying to repair a brand new item.

It turned out the problem was due to a small manufacturing defect. The tolerances were such that the locking arm was not able to rotate on its support shaft, even though it was supposed to. I was able to figure this out by comparing to the right side, which was working properly. I used a dremel to fix this.

The reason it was working with no load is that, without a load, the shaft itself could rotate in its support. But with a load, the shaft is no longer able to rotate because of the force of the hydraulic piston.

I guess the lesson to all this is that quickjack has lousy customer support; and maybe their quality control could be improved.

I will post pictures a bit later this weekend.

Meyer

mnahon · « **Reply #39 on:** July 21, 2018, 14:09:28 »

Here are some pictures. By the way, the spead of the lift points that I ended up using, measured the same way that Quickjack shows in their dimension drawings, is 1308 mm. The maximum spread of the 3500-lb quickjack unit is 1283 mm. I do think the smaller unit would work; there's enough leeway in fore-aft of the front support points; but it would just barely work. I think the 5000-lb unit gives you more options if you plan to lift anything else.

I'm including one picture that shows how close the left ramp is to the muffler. It works, but you have to be careful.

Pawel66 · « **Reply #40 on:** July 21, 2018, 18:45:00 »

Happy you managed to get it working and point taken about their poor customer service. Given the marketing effort they undertaken, it is a pity they did not have such a critical component work.

Noted the point on the muffler. Is this when you put just one block as support? Or both thick one and thin one?

There seem to be enough space underneath for small jobs.

mnahon · « **Reply #41 on:** July 21, 2018, 20:52:14 »

I have a thin block at each front support point and a thick block at each of the rear points. I had done this, because at one point, I thought that the non-level lifting might be causing the problem I was having---the front points are slightly lower than the rear points, so the lift was contacting first at the front. That had nothing to do with the problem.

You're right that adding a block at the rear would give me a bit more clearance on the muffler. I will do that next time I lift the car. Right now the lift is stowed. I just leave the ramps on the floor aligned in the center of the car, disconnect the hydraulic hoses. I can take the car in and out of the garage, and I can deploy the lift reasonably quickly when needed.

Pawel66 · « **Reply #42 on:** July 21, 2018, 20:58:43 »

Yes, that is what I was hoping for - you just leave the ramps on the floor and hook them as you need.

Dash808 · « **Reply #43 on:** July 22, 2018, 20:10:43 »

Quote from: mnahon on July 21, 2018, 14:09:28

Here are some pictures. By the way, the spead of the lift points that I ended up using, measured the same way that Quickjack shows in their dimension drawings, is 1308 mm. The maximum spread of the 3500-lb quickjack unit is 1283 mm. I do think the smaller unit would work; there's enough leeway in fore-aft of the front support points; but it would just barely work. I think the 5000-lb unit gives you more options if you plan to lift anything else.

I'm including one picture that shows how close the left ramp is to the muffler. It works, but you have to be careful.

One of my hydraulic line's fitting's was defective on my Quickjack. I called CS and they were very accommodating and promptly sent two new lines..... except they were the wrong two! I contacted them again and they re-sent the correct two so now I have plenty of extra hydraulic lines if anyone needs a replacement

So I had a good CS experience but as a note these are produced in China and materials and production quality are not exactly the highest.

Pawel66 · « **Reply #44 on:** July 22, 2018, 21:04:46 »

Thanks for feedback!

mnahon · « **Reply #45 on:** July 23, 2018, 03:27:34 »

That's good to know. I'm hoping things will be smooth from here on and that my initial CS experience was an outlier. Overall, I'm happy with the purchase, because I think it's the right lift for my particular situation. It's a nice design and easy to use.

mauro12 · « **Reply #46 on:** October 03, 2022, 16:58:10 »

Hi guys , it’s been quite long time but I wanted to ask you a question . I realized that almost all tire shops uses this kind of lift to replace tires. If you use this lift is not dangerous for our cars ? Because it seems that is not raising the car from the structural point but from a very external position and if you knock there , for sure is strong metal but is it strong enough to support the entire weigh of the car ?

News:

Author Topic: This Type of Lift - Is It Ok for Our Cars? (Read 12209 times)