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Please help me buy my garage lifts


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All taped out. Have called a vendor and he is emailing me a proposal. I spent a lot of time today practicing backing in and pulling out the trailer. Lemme tell ya, if you ever build a garage, do yourself a favor and put a 12' wide door on the side where you plan to park your car hauler trailer-its a bear (sic) trying to get a 103" wide trailer thru a 120" opening while making a 90-degree turn backwards off the street. An auto tranny on the truck would help too. I had my friend come over with his F150 extended cab to ensure that I could work on the largest vehicle I could imagine-I won't be able to park that under the 4-post, but it fits on top of the 4-post and on the 2-post. We moved the 2 post a little deeper into the garage based on that. I have my only buddy within 2 hours, that has a running S30,coming over next weekend to see how it fits. Checked my truck and trailer on both sides and it's good. The 4 post lift placement is pretty simple; its the 2-post that is more difficult.

 

The toughest issue to figure out is where to locate the lifting pads on the S30 chassis when using the 2-post. If I locate the 2-post columns in the WIDE setting as is required to let the trailer back between the posts, there is barely enough reach on the lifting arms to get on the frame rails at the TC box if I fully utilize the asymmetric setting and swing the front arms as shown below. That will allow me to just barely reach the seatbelt boxes with the rear lift arms, fully utilizing the asymmetric property of the lift. The lift pads are supposed to be a 3". How do you guys feel about using the pinch seam on the rocker panel for lift pad placement?

post-5903-0-09077600-1453165075_thumb.jpeg

Edited by RebekahsZ
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Can you weld a lift pad under your cage uprights where they tie into the floor? I haven't honestly had my car up in the air yet due time constraints and work. I think bad dog makes a weld in jack pad, should be a simple fab project though. Reinforce the floor somewhere near a structural cross member or frame rail with a thicker piece of plate or box to spread the load across a larger area than the lift pad, and BAM, now you have a quick reference for your lift point at the track as well

 

Edit: found the bad dog single point jack pads:

 

http://baddogparts.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_4&products_id=3&zenid=4b9a466dcb549c1891f0dbd2896e19ca

Edited by 1969honda
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I lift mine on the bad dog rails. I extended the back of them to tie into the structure that's between the rear shock towers under the car. The lift I use has these little rubber disks that are about an inch or so thick, and look like hockey pucks. I lift our honda on the seam under the rockers using those in between and they haven't bent yet, but I've only had that car on the lift 4 or 5 times. My Z stayed on it for sometimes weeks at a time on the bad dog rails with no issues. Is there a reason you're not centering the car fore and aft with the posts?

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That's why I'm getting both styles.  I helped a buddy reduce his S30s toe-in from 3/8" to 1/16" today because he was eating a front tire.  It took us a couple hours what with checking baseline camber and toe, removing some coil spring wedges, measuring again, inspecting the front end wear components, then setting it correct, then checking again after a test drive.  I'd like to reduce the time involved in that exercise as I wind up doing it a lot.  I think a developing crack in my slab may determine where my 2-post goes.  Problem with that scissors jack is that I don't want to lift by my floor pans, and you can't store a car underneath them AND on top of them-that is an awesome setup for the right car.  Good idea about having jack points made where the roll cage hits the floor, but I think that will be BEHIND the CG of the car, especially if I pull the engine and transmission with the car off the ground (one of the reasons for wanting a lift).  I dropped my rear subframe once with jackstands too far back and the car tried to flip over on its nose-I grabbed the back bumper and screamed till my wife woke up and put something in the trunk to balance the car.  When you autocross, track day, drag race and landspeed race, and drive to work (when it ain't broke), you do a lot of setup changes.  I do wish I had the bad dog frame rails-they will go on the next z for sure.  Greg Smith sells Atlas lifts-the arms really sag a lot on their 2-post lifts and they don't offer (that I could find) a low profile lift.  The Atlas 4-post is much narrower than the one I'm getting, which requires you to collapse your mirrors before you park underneath it.  Not centering for-aft is what is called an asymmetric lift.  It simply lets you open the doors while the car is on the lift.  Everybody I have asked insisted that I get an asymmetric.  I have also ordered a couple of tall jackstands-one for each end after the car is in the air.  2-posts look scary by their nature.  I took a good video today of a stock Z's bumpsteer (actually compression steer).  I will post that once I go thru the video loading exercise.

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I looked at that.  Can't argue with how nice it looks and how much open floor space it preserves-and I LOVE how low that lift is.  But, you can't park under it to create more car storage space.  Take a look at your z-car's belly and tell me you want to support the car like that?  That tile floor will be hell with a rolling stool or creaper.  Or a transmission jack.  Glad he used black grout in preparation for oil spills.  My wife would like it, but not me.

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It would be nice to open the doors some more. I can barely squeeze in if the door is touching the post. The lift I use had a cylinder blow out on it with a ford diesel 4 door duallie on it. It was on the stops so the truck didn't go anywhere. but the cylinder was in a bind so they weren't able to get it out. They had to jack the truck up about an inch or 2 so they could get the cylinder out. That's scary when such a big truck is already 6 feet off the ground. Needless to say, they redid both cylinders once they were able to get a new cylinder in and get the truck down.

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