[Bentwheelbob]

OK, time to come clean. Sort of like confession. I bought myself a second four post lift for Christmas. Kind of a Merry Christmas to me offset to the blue Tiffany box. I got it put together the Saturday before Christmas and after getting it adjusted and in position I couldn't wait to get a car on it and up in the air. At about the 10:30 that night the Red Car was loaded up and raised. I took it up, brought it down. Took it up again and brought it down again. Everything looked good, so I started taking it up to full elevation and that's when all h_ll broke loose.

The seal in the hydraulic cylinder failed and the whole car started coming down. The lift has safety guards for such a situation, and it sort of worked. The problem is that the drivers side rear was just high enough to catch to upper safety lock. The passenger side rear was enough lower that it came to rest 5" lower. The driver's front also settled on the lock 5" lower. By this time the whole lift was twisting and had become unstable. I was holding onto the front driver's side leg trying to keep a total collapse from occurring. Ultimately the passenger front locked in about 1.5' lower than the driver's rear. It was ugly. There was hydraulic fluid everywhere, I was holding onto the lift, my neighbor Ken was in shock, and the Red Car was about to go through the garage wall.

When all was said and done the whole mess stabilized, but barely. Each post was leaning about 20 degrees off of plumb and resting on only one corner of the base plate. I could have pushed it over with about 10lbs of force. Talk about a mess....I called My Pal Dave and MPD, my neighbor Ken and I quickly went to work. We secured the top of the posts using binder straps hooked to the ceiling bar joists. We also anchored a chain to the wall with Hilti anchors and secured straps between it and the bottom of the posts to keep them from kicking out. About 2:30am that morning I went to bed hoping that when I woke up the car would not be sticking through the garage wall.

Well I got up about 7:00am and the car was still standing. I called two fantastic neighbors over and we devised a plan of action. One of them had a good friend that runs the local All Crane branch. All Crane dispatched two of their best guys on a Sunday and they showed up with a 9000lb Fork Lift, a cube of crib timbers, chain hoists and a bunch of steel to bridge the bar joists. The other neighbor dispatched his best guy from the manufacturing facility he owns with more steel, chain falls and a service truck. Ultimately we secured the whole structure with chain falls, cribbed the rear of the lift solid, and used the fork lift to elevate and level the front of the car and lift. Once this was accomplished, we started lowering the whole thing 6" at a time. By 5:30 the car was on the ground and the only things damaged were my pride and pocket book.

The lift manufacturer stood tall and agreed to replace the lift. I spent the next weekend tearing down the old lift, and last weekend installing the replacement lift. All is now well. Here are some pictures of the mess.












Be careful and have great friends.