Fundraising for installing 2 post lift

Automotive
#1

We need donations to help cover the cost of buying and installing a new 2 post lift, the automotive committee has about half of the $1,820 price already covered. Anyone who has ever had to crawl on the ground under a car to do some work will benefit greatly. And teaching classes will be much more effective when you dont have to be laying under the car to see anything.

Here is a mockup of the lift we want to purchase and install at DMS, an Atlas 9KOH overhead 2 post lift

Plan for lift usage restrictions:
Due to safety concerns, there will be a mandatory training and one time training fee of $100 before any member is allowed to operate the lift. While not in use the arms of the lift will be chained together with a combination lock and only trained members are given the combination.

The one time training fee will be waived for anyone who wants to instead teach one class that utilizes the lift (following the established honorarium rules for scheduling the class)

Potential concerns:
The largest potential problem will be having only one lift, and when you are working on something you could be on the lift for several hours. At first it will just be first come first serve. It would be nice to eventually have some kind of advance reservation system, but I’m not sure just having an open google calendar would work.

Another potential concern is that we are not looking to become a mechanics shop where people can get others to fix / work on their cars. We have limited space and are an educational focused organization. The lift is for anyone who would otherwise be working on their vehicle and just needs the tools provided by DMS or anyone who needs help and wants to learn to work on their vehicle.

Paypal Donations
Paypal link to donate, Any donation would be greatly appreciated, any donation will be applied to the one time per member training fee.

3 Likes
Lift Install Updates
Do we really have to pay $50 for the Auto Lift class?
Authorization for tools: Strings attached?
#2

Awesome! This is the same lift we had at Club Workshop in Denver. Solid equipment. I’ll be glad to teach a class if needed,

#3

Would a donation of $100 suffice for the training fee? I not sure many people would donate towards the cause if they then had to pay a big fee for training.

We ended up with a similar situation with the HASS mill but training on it is extensive.

#4

Yes a donation of $100 for purchasing would cover the training fee

Anyone who would like to use the lift and wants to avoid the fee can simply teach one class utilizing the lift, you can simply make whatever project you were going to do on the lift into a class. There aren’t any large restrictions on how formal / informal a class needs to be, you just have to follow the honorarium rules (schedule it in advance, submit a basic curriculum describing what you will be going over, have at least 3 people attend class, and walk through what you are doing)

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#5

So what safety has been thought of for this lift? Insurance as a side note, but I would hate to have someone drop a car on someone.

http://cms.uug.com/enTouchCMS/app/viewDocument?docID=405

./Andrew

#6

The plans for safety right now are restricting access with locks and thorough training (based on class materials from ALI). There will always be a risk of someone messing up and dropping a car, the question is if we can get that down to an acceptable level through training of members before allowing them to use the lift.

There are free online training videos
And reference materials available

#7

Hello Brandon,

Anyone who would like to use the lift and wants to avoid the fee can
simply teach one class utilizing the lift, you can simply make whatever
project you were going to do on the lift into a class.

That sounds perfectly fair as I took a year of automotive technology at Brookhaven College, was an ASE certified mechanic that worked in several shops and I have continued working on cars ever since I could drive. I am very familiar with lift systems and used one earlier this year at Keesler AFB when I was working on my then girlfriend’s car. I would be delighted to teach a class, but I would like to review the manual first. (you never know everything)

So what safety has been thought of for this lift? Insurance as a side
note, but I would hate to have someone drop a car on someone.

Andrew, that is a very reasonable and sane question to ask. Lifts typically come with safety mechanisms that lock to prevent a car from coming down even in the event of hydraulic failure.

What you DO have to watch for is how the vehicle is balanced on the arms and where the appropriate lift points are. Ideally you get that from the manual, but an experienced mechanic can visually determine the strong points of the frame. Also, I recommend lifting a car incrementally to watch for imbalance or crush points before raising it fully in the air.

Finally, I would like to have some empirical assurance from the installation company that the lift has been properly anchored to the floor.

I can submit a suggested outline to you and Brandon before offering to teach a class.

Best Regards,

Joel-Anthony Gray

1 Like
#8

I would recommend putting it deep enough into the shop so additional vehicles could still be brought in behind it.

#9

With the installment of the lift, people have to keep some things in mind.

https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Automotive_Committee

The rules I had in mind is #1 and #2. Don’t do anything to the car that would hobble it that you can’t fix.

#10

I could have sworn I saw somewhere that this was a “go” and the lift had been ordered. I cannot find that now, so have come to believe I am mistaken. Therefore, I inquire, now that the new year is well into swing, what is the status of this? Where are we on raising the funds? How do we donate toward this goal?

Thank you, as always, for helping out us newBs.

#11

I did say it was a go, I typed up a reasoning document, got a quote for delivery, and measured the concrete floor thickness. But decided not to order one after not raising any funds from anyone else and starting to fear that the overhead of administering the lift (restricting access, running classes / training, collecting one time use fee, preventing dangerous activity, having to coordinate lift reservations) would be more than I would like to deal with.

Now I kind of like having the open floor space and ability to have 4 vehicles in the workshop at once, despite lamenting my decision twice while on the creeper under the lemons car and taking 15 minutes to jack up my car…

#12

I’m still confused why 4 cars won’t fit in the space with the lift, if the lift is set into the space to allow cars to still enter via the ramp? If the lift is too wode, you still could get three cars in. The lift towards the front of the space, then 2 cars towards the ramp.

I also saw a lot of people were willing to pay the one time fee for training; but it seemed the fee payment strategy for the first time use and training was confusing people.

As far as administering the program, if you as the committee chair was not interested in admin side, is someone else on your committee willing to admin the lift, and if so, are you willing to oversee that they do it correctly?

#13

If someone wants to be in charge of a lift and gets the money raised I would support them

It would be possible to get 3 cars in with a lift (only 1 would actually be in auto square) but it would be trickier as you would have to drive through the lift. Moving the lift more forward(away from ramp) 10 feet so its in line with 2 poles would not be excellent to everyone else who likes not having 11’ tall steel columns in their way

vs current very flexible open space:

#14

Pretty good photoshop skills with the lift there :wink:

I will donate to lift, especially if it is set up as the training/purchase fund; but I have 60% business travel and night time college classes, so I am not able to administer the lift program.

Since the personal storage boxes are going away, you might be able to relocate the auto shelves and free up some of the car space to allow two cars in the door at once. I’m also curious on the thought that two cars outside the auto square is more or less excellent than one car on the lift.

New Tools for 2015 Q1
#15

How about more flexible lift arrangements?
(In order of realistic pricing/usefulness)
MaxJax uses flush-mounting system to allow the lift posts to be moved out of the way and put back in place easily, as desired. Price is very competitive.

MoblieMan is a one-post lift on a pallet jack. Limitations: perception of safety and only 6,000 pounds. OK for small cars, not so much for Cadillacs and Cummins trucks. Also configureation may be cumbersome for some repairs, such as exhaust removal.

iDeal Lift is freakin’ cool, in that each column will lift 18,000 pounds, and you can just add-on posts as needed for capacity. Main drawback is $$, but it’s highly portable and highly expandable, in case we want to start teaching Big-Rig maintenance.

These are just 3 of the choices I found really quick with a Google search. There are many, many others, although most are a variation on these 3 themes.

Thoughts?

#16

FYI I talked to Erin (Insurance Agent) and she is very concerned about this so before making any purchases I need to find out what the increased cost to the Policy will be. My guess is it’s going to be $$$$.

#17

I’d be happy to assist with this, like Clayton, I can’t be the lone wolf, but am certainly open to shared responsibility.

Seem’s like having enough lane space where you’ve got the red arrow would be the ticket. That way a car could still pull up into the forward bay if one is already on the lift. We could move that set of shelves up beside the lemmons car.

Having a lift is absolutely what qualifies a real auto group and will attract future gearhead members. I understand the very valid insurance and safety concerns in a group environment, and the latter could be handled by mandatory training.

#18

Thanks for the research Jast.

I’ve been close to buying the MaxJax and then decided against it. Most other’s on various car forums keep one post “permanent” and make the other mobile. It’s ok when you get ready for a big job, but it’s too much hassle to bolt on the damn thing just for an oil change. The MobileMan is interesting, and like the scissor lifts, they offer the advantage of less floor space, but is usually a problem when you want to drop a tranny or propshaft. (It work’s great on the rear-engined 911)