Perfect Park 7000 Lift

[JL66REDCPE]

This looks like a pretty good lift to me. Any comments good or bad would be appreciated. It is a tough choice between the leading vendors. This one just seems to be designed better. Website is www.liftsunlimited.com

thanks in advance

 

[Viet Nam Vett]

This looks like a pretty good lift to me. Any comments good or bad would be appreciated. It is a tough choice between the leading vendors. This one just seems to be designed better. Website is www.liftsunlimited.com

thanks in advance

Heh...... That lift looks really cool... I like it. I don't think I'll have any troubles changing the oil at your house with that lift.

Can you say Lift Install Party....??????:bar

 

[6TVETT]

I have owned one for two years and have not had any problems. When it was purchased we worked a deal for aluminum ramps, two jack plates, drip pans, and the wheel kit. The directions that were sent with to assemble the lift were poor. They may have improved them by now. You will need two people to do the assembly. Feel free to email or call with questions. 651-248-0059. Steve

 

[IH2LOSE]

John I have had a lift for a few years now.If I was to do it all over again I would get a backyard buddy. The lift you have posted a link to is the one that a while back colasped in a guys garage (check the archive at the other forum from like 4 years ago) Pretty much the majority of all the lifts have the same locking design with the exception of two units back yard budyy and another company I forgot the name to.

My lift is of the same design and the locking system is just prone to catatrophic failure do to operator error. Twice on mine I almost got into trouble because I did not relise the locks all the way when lowering a car.Allthough it was purely operator error (me not paying attention) the design of the back yard buddy is more foregiving.

Look into the back yard buddy

So now you may be asking why didnt I purchase the back yard buddy.
Well when I was shopping for a lift I made a deal at carlilse and Backyard buddy did not have free shipping (about 400.00) and they were also 275.00 more then the lift I purchased.But the cincher was that they could not ship the unit for another 2-3 weeks. The company I purchased from shipped the unit on the tuesday after Corvettes of carlilse.

I know your local to me (with in a couple of hours) If you like come to my house and I can show you why this style design is no good.

Good luck

 

[IH2LOSE]

PS

the bad side of a lift is you now have easey axcess to the bottom of your car.You find a whole bunch of new things to tinker and work on easely

 

[BarryK]

John

Terry (Vette66AirCoupe) has a backyard Buddy lift that I think he is pretty happy with. He keeps his '66 and his '60 on it. If he doesn't reply to this thread you may want to PM him to get more info. I think he just put his in last year.

 

[JL66REDCPE]

Thanks for all the responses. Yep -- it was this lift that had the failure. I remember one of them failing but didnt remember which one. This design actually looked better than the rest to me -- however that is the value of this forum -- REAL INFO. Looks like this one is definitely out.

 

[BarryK]

PS

the bad side of a lift is you now have easey axcess to the bottom of your car.You find a whole bunch of new things to tinker and work on easely

Larry, I'm curious. Obviously as opposed to a 2 post lift, you can't lift the car and pull the wheels off, but does it really give you a lot of room underneath to be able to work on the car or is a 4-post lift mainly just for increasing car storage capacity in the garage?

 

[allcoupedup]

Barry,
With the jack bridge and a $10 bottle jack, you can pump up the car while on the 4 post lift to do brake or suspension work. That being said, I avoid it whenever possible - there;s just something about a car on jack stands 5 feet up in the air that makes me nervous.:ugh

Brian

 

[IH2LOSE]

Larry, I'm curious. Obviously as opposed to a 2 post lift, you can't lift the car and pull the wheels off, but does it really give you a lot of room underneath to be able to work on the car or is a 4-post lift mainly just for increasing car storage capacity in the garage?

Barry the 4 post give you entire axcess to the majority of the bottom of the car.If you need to you can use the jack bridges and lift and support a car.But as I have said it doesnt take much to get this lift out of shape (due to operator error) so Yes it is scary to have the car on jack stands on the lift.If I am doing something that requires the car to go up and down several times on the lift I will strap the car to the lift.If I am doing just something simple I have no fear of having it on jack stands

 

[John Mcgraw]

I looked at the perfect park when I bought, but did not like the fact that the locks were enclosed and out of sight. I ended up buying a DirectLift 4 poster, but it is the same lift that most of the other vendors sell today except for backyard buddy. Most all of these lifts came from the same plant in Texas and are of the same quality no matter what name is on the lift. It uses the external lock blocks that are visible from the outside. The backyard buddy is a nice lift, but I would not pay the premium for it. Several vendors sell the external lock block lift for well below the $2000 mark and some even include drip trays, jack bridge, and casters for that price! spend the extra money and get the aluminum ramps, as the standard steel ones are a pain!


Regards, John McGraw

 

[IH2LOSE]

Larry, I'm curious. Obviously as opposed to a 2 post lift, you can't lift the car and pull the wheels off, but does it really give you a lot of room underneath to be able to work on the car or is a 4-post lift mainly just for increasing car storage capacity in the garage?

Barry

I hope your not in the market for a lift,with your track record (that I am aware of) I have to say a lift does NOT belong in your garage.

Larry

 

[BarryK]

gee Larry
thanks for your overwhelming vote of confidence in me!

no, i'm not currently in the market for a lift, but i'm hoping to be in a few years. Linda and I want to add another "toy" to the garage but since we only have a 2-car garage and can't expand the garage I'd need a 4-post lift to store both cars on the one side so she could still pull her daily driver in also.

 

[Vette66AirCoupe]

I have a Backyard Buddy and I like it very much. You have to have confidence in your equipment if you want to sleep at night! A couple of comments on some of the things I've read:

I agree 100% that cars on jackstands do not belong on a lift. That's what the floor is for in my opinion.

Make sure you have adequate ceiling height before buying. My ceiling is 10'3.5" in the front and 10'6" in the rear as it slopes for drainage ( no, a level floor is not required). This gives me enough room to put the lift up onto it's next to top notch. At that height I can walk under the car, but not the lift itself which is about 5'3" off the floor on that notch. I'm 6'1". The bottom car has 12' of clearance which means I could drop down one notch and still have 6" of clearance underneath. I also have 12" of clearance on the top (at the ceiling) but be advised that I need to use some of that 12" to get the lift up past the second to the top notch allowing me to then let the lift settle back down onto the lock notches (one on each post) and you also need some room for the garage door if you have an overhead door. You may have to revise your overhead door for clearance. For what it's worth, I don't think I'd want the car up on the top lift as it's almost too high to work on.

You WILL bang your head repeatedly getting out of the car you park on the bottom. I found that I could put foam pipe insulation on the edge to lessen that blow but it still rings your bell if you forget where you are!

You will need more that two people to assemble the lift. The ramp that has the cylinder mounted on it is a real ball buster! If you are having it delivered to your house it will require a lot of help. I had friends bring mine from the truck terminal and then we disassembled the shipping carton to take off individual parts. Three of us ended up rolling the aforementioned ramp off the back across broom handles. You really need a fork lift to move the thing as it is shipped and I don't know if the trucker will be happy to wiat for you to disassemble. They use wood, angle iron and big ass bolts to put it all together for shipping. Nicely done, great protection for your purchase I might add.

The directions were pretty good in my opinion.

I chose the 110 volt option as that was what was already in my garage and I have no complaints.

Buy the drip pans!

I believe Backyard Buddy offers a discount if you order at Carlisle.

Mine came in ahead of schedule so be prepared.

I had a crew of 5, a little overkill, but we got it done in about 2 hours and had fun doing it. Most of the time was spent with the linkages, cables and squaring it up as you might expect.

Have some saw horses handy, beats working on the floor. Don't use them to hold the ramps though, too heavy.

I'm about 25 minutes from the Delaware Memorial Bridge if you'd like to come take a look. I'm about as far away from you as Fox Run.

 

[allcoupedup]

Nice post, nice garage, and nice cars!

 

[BarryK]

Terry
scary pic of you and your "posse"
I remember most of those faces from the cruises last year.

my ceiling is lower (i need to measure it but I think it's only about 9' (?) ) so if I do ever decide to add a lift i guess I'd need to cut into the ceiling and open it up to allow enough height. That would require redoing the ceiling rafters and than redoing the sheetrock once it's opened up I'd imagine. doesn't sound fun
but at least I'd know who to call to help assemble it

 

[Grizzly]

A Vote for Backyard Buddy

I too have a Backyard Buddy and love it. I would make the following comments:

1. After a lot of investigation, I can't see trusting your life to a welded on tab that is the lock for most of these lifts. Compare how BYB uses slots cut into a full square piece of stock, not a "C" channel with welded on tabs.

2. Check sizes, I bought a model with extra height and extra length. I can easily get under it and it will take an extended cab pickup with an 8' bed, many will not. With an 11' ceiling I can stack my 59 Impala above my 94 Towncar with no problems. Vettes are easy compared to those two, but the extra size gives you flexibility.

3. BYB offers a jack system that will lift one end of the car for brake and suspension work.

4. I don't know where you live, but for the price they quoted for shipping I just rented a trailer and drove to the factory to pick it up and had beer money for my crew left over. Also no hassle with delivery truck drivers!

5. Good stout friends certainly are a help, but a big engine hoist is your best friend.

6. Buy at some kind of show. They have all kinds of incentives with trays and ramps and the like.

"Let's be careful out there".....................Sgt on Hill Street Blues

 

[JL66REDCPE]

Terry -- I remember the lift assembly party you folks had not too long ago. Thank you for all the info it is very helpful. I was going to use my 4x8 trailer to bring it home. I thinkl it is rated at 1000 lbs. Also, I have a boom on the back of my tractor and was hoping to use that to move the heavy stuff. I figured I would rig up some kind of a sling/lifting carrier. Thank you for the invite to come take a look.

 

[srs244]

while it's certainly not the same, i went with the kwiklift system (www.kwiklift.com). i didn't have the ceiling clearance in my garage, (and couldn't afford to modify my garage ceiling for a regular lift) and needed something that gave me a bit of room to work under any of my cars. cost was also a factor in my case, so this turned out to be a great purchase. there is plenty of room to work using a decent creeper and the "kit" purchase includes small access ramps, wheel chocks and a heavy duty bridge. the ramp seperation is totally adjustable also. it can also be left in the "ramp up" position for parking the car on so that getting it to the "working" position is pretty simple. it can also be put down flat and driven on to park if desired. it is completely mechanical and is lifted using a good quality floor jack with a 20" lift capacity. i find that i can work under any of the cars with full arm extension if necessary. while it would have been nice for storage of a couple of vehicles to have a regular type lift, under my circumstances it really wasn't a viable option for me (no space and less $$, lol). i hope this might be helpful to anyone out there who finds themself in the same position as me.

steve

 

[zl167]

The best lift for the buck is the Bend Pak HD-9 series. I just installed 2 HD-9STX's in my garage. I have a 12' ceiling, so I wanted to take advantage of the height and not be cracking my head on the lifts when walking under them. The Bend Pak lifts are certified by ETL. You won't find that too many brands that are tested and certified. (http://www.bendpak.com/etl_report.pdf)