Bought a Bend Pak lift for my car. Had a question if this is safe. pics inside.
Bought a Bend Pak lift for my car. Had a question if this is safe. pics inside.
Is this a good design and is it safe? 9,000 lb lift.
I recently purchased a Bend Pak lift. I have the ladders that go inside the four posts. I don’t know if I have the wrong ladders in my kit, but I noticed that my ladders do not touch the bottom plate. Is this correct and is this strong and stable? It seems like this design would allow room for wiggle and cause an unstable situation. I bought a bend pak lift because I thought it was reliable abd safe. Any idea on this type of design?
Before anyone gives me crap about my previous lifts, they are fine for light work and storage. I just don't know about this design that bend pak came out with is going cheap or I am missing something here.
__________________
1992 Black Lamborghini Diablo
1992 Red Ferrari 512TR
1998 Silver Viper GTS Supercharged. RIP www.qualitywires.com wires for your viper and now ceramic coating for your exhaust!
i have a 10,500lb rotary 4 post that uses a design like that. i assume the point of the the "ladder" hanging on the bolt is so that the ladders can be adjusted so that you can adjust how level the list is when its resting on them.
i have heard of plenty of cars falling off a 2 post lift when not put on the lift correctly, but i am not sure that i have ever heard of a car falling off a lift due to the lift breaking.
if thats a 4 post... and your sayign the weight of your car and the ramps, beams, etc is hanging 4 of those big ass bolts... i wouldnt worry about it.
i have a 10,500lb rotary 4 post that uses a design like that. i assume the point of the the "ladder" hanging on the bolt is so that the ladders can be adjusted so that you can adjust how level the list is when its resting on them.
i have heard of plenty of cars falling off a 2 post lift when not put on the lift correctly, but i am not sure that i have ever heard of a car falling off a lift due to the lift breaking.
if thats a 4 post... and your sayign the weight of your car and the ramps, beams, etc is hanging 4 of those big ass bolts... i wouldnt worry about it.
Phunk,
Does your rotarty lift shake and wiggle still when the lift/car is sitting on the ladder? (No weight on the cables). So Rotary uses a similar design where it hangs a ladder from one bolt and no other support? I figure the adjustments would come from the cables and not the ladder. This design is new to me and it sort of worries me about this design. I just don't like my cars wiggling when I am doing work on it where I have to yank on a bolt or pulling a tranny out. Thanks for the feed back.
yes by the way it's a 4 post. HD-9-B series.
I wonder why they went from welded tabs to a hanging ladder design.
IIRC correctly it had a little bit of play (its currently apart in storage) but not much and it wouldnt move easily. However, my rotary is a massive beast with catwalks all around it and folding down stairs... its probably a good 1000lb heavier than yours.. mine is not the type of 4 post you would have at a home, it would consume an entire 2 car garage in width and is too long to fit a standard garage.
But ya, the ladders are hanging on a single large bolt on the top. Large enough that I am sure an entire car could be held up by just one of them assuming its the proper grade bolt. My ladders dont touch the ground, and when the lift is on the ground if i kick or bump into one of the beams hard the ladders will clank and hit the housing around it.
If the steps were welded to the beams like in the old design you speak of, that would not work out well on a surface that is not perfectly flat... the surface would rest on 4 unlevel stops and possible have a rock if 2 opposing corners were higher than the opposite opposing corners. I think the entire idea is for level resting of the surface. Even if the floor was perfectly flat with the old design, if it had any grade to it then you would have to have a lot of trust in your parking brake!
IIRC correctly it had a little bit of play (its currently apart in storage) but not much and it wouldnt move easily. However, my rotary is a massive beast with catwalks all around it and folding down stairs... its probably a good 1000lb heavier than yours.. mine is not the type of 4 post you would have at a home, it would consume an entire 2 car garage in width and is too long to fit a standard garage.
But ya, the ladders are hanging on a single large bolt on the top. Large enough that I am sure an entire car could be held up by just one of them assuming its the proper grade bolt. My ladders dont touch the ground, and when the lift is on the ground if i kick or bump into one of the beams hard the ladders will clank and hit the housing around it.
If the steps were welded to the beams like in the old design you speak of, that would not work out well on a surface that is not perfectly flat... the surface would rest on 4 unlevel stops and possible have a rock if 2 opposing corners were higher than the opposite opposing corners. I think the entire idea is for level resting of the surface. Even if the floor was perfectly flat with the old design, if it had any grade to it then you would have to have a lot of trust in your parking brake!
Just a note on lifts, ANSI specs state any load bearing structure intended for personnel to be on/underneath must have a rating of X3. This means a 10,000lb lift must withstand a 30,000 load before failing and the failure must be of a deformation and not a shearing/snap failure. They really do have your safety in mind when they build these things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ANSI
ANSI/ALI ALCTV-1998 became fully effective on April 1, 2000. ANSI/ALI B153.1-1990 has been withdrawn. Both are performance standards requiring, in part, that catastrophic failure of the lift should not occur at less than three (3) times the lift's "rated load capacity". The most common lifts are "rated" at 7,000 and 9,000 pounds which means they should support 21,000 and 27,000 pounds respectively without collapsing. Skipping over the technical alternates, such as stress calculations, finite element analyses (FEA), etc., the usual and most practical way to run this test on these more common types of lifts is to raise the unloaded lift, load it with steel to the test weight, and see if it collapses.
Well, I talked to bend pak and they rest assured me that the design is strong enough to do my work I need to do on my cars. It appears that many major companies such as Rotatry, Challenger and other companies use the same design with the hanging ladders with success. I will just have to get used to the little play in the lift. What I like about my lift is the rolling air/hydraulic jack accessory I bought for it to work on brakes or whatever I need to take off the wheels. I will purchase another lift eventually and I will get a Back Yard Buddy since I like the overall design and sturdiness of the lift. My Bend Pak lift has a good reputation and just not a big fan of the "wiggle" even though it's suppose to be that way. I spent about $3590.00 total with the jacking system delivered.
Linear Mode
