How (and why) to Ramble on your goat sideways
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I'm going all out with it. I'm putting pex throughout because heated floors make me happy. I've got about 2000 square feet of glorious shop space that is little more than storage at the moment because I can't roll **** around in gravel.
I'm very exited to finally be making some headway on it.
I'm very exited to finally be making some headway on it.
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Concrete is cheap if it's done right the first time. It sucks to have to go back, rip it out and start over.
Use at least 6", and reinforce the hell out of it. Make it so it can support a lift larger than what you are planning. Make the pads larger than you think it needs, too. It's not that much more expensive to over engineer it, and you'll have the peace of mind knowing it is more than strong enough.
Use at least 6", and reinforce the hell out of it. Make it so it can support a lift larger than what you are planning. Make the pads larger than you think it needs, too. It's not that much more expensive to over engineer it, and you'll have the peace of mind knowing it is more than strong enough.
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--Ian
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I'm not planning on ever lifting a five ton camper, so I think a 9,000 lb unit will work just fine for me.
Thanks for the advice. 6" it is.
Thanks for the advice. 6" it is.
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-Reason #9 I don't use facebook: My wife posted a picture of us from a Christmas party on her account and tagged me in the photo yesterday. She sent a text to me today telling me people she didn't know but I knew were posting replies to it and asking me questions as if I posted it. "Yep, that's how it works," I told her. "You sent an email and possibly a smart phone alert to every single person on my friends list to specially tell them where I was and what I was doing and who with and show them the picture. Hell, I've even been tagged in pictures I was not in just because some dumbass wanted me to see them."
I only go on the damn thing once every 6 weeks but had to go in and I changed my settings. I took a moment to cruise through the "feed" and was not surprised. Stupid **** and old people learning to web. Poorly done political meme, amazon advertisement of the last thing I looked at, love Jesus click like, advertisement, something stupid about Dwayne "the rock" Johnson, advertisement, ISIS/muslims suck meme, advertisement, somebody's stupid kids, credit card advertisement, the Dems want to take your guns meme, somebody's dog in a costume, ---Yep, I'm not missing a chromeplated emmefffing thing by keeping facebook out of my life.
I set almost everything to "me only" and "must be approved by me." And, no, it isn't linked at all to my cellphone. I will not use my phone to access it if I ever do.
/rant
I only go on the damn thing once every 6 weeks but had to go in and I changed my settings. I took a moment to cruise through the "feed" and was not surprised. Stupid **** and old people learning to web. Poorly done political meme, amazon advertisement of the last thing I looked at, love Jesus click like, advertisement, something stupid about Dwayne "the rock" Johnson, advertisement, ISIS/muslims suck meme, advertisement, somebody's stupid kids, credit card advertisement, the Dems want to take your guns meme, somebody's dog in a costume, ---Yep, I'm not missing a chromeplated emmefffing thing by keeping facebook out of my life.
I set almost everything to "me only" and "must be approved by me." And, no, it isn't linked at all to my cellphone. I will not use my phone to access it if I ever do.
/rant
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I called up the guy who sold the Chinese lift to ask some questions. He pulled over his SUV right away and got out on the side of the road to measure some heights to give me some info I asked about. He then sent me a nice big fat PDF of everything I wanted to know about the lift. He was in Alabama, but the lifts were in a warehouse in Atlanta. I could have it delivered within a week and total cost shipped would be less then $2000.
I then called the company that was in Texas to inquire about the US made lift. It was about $3800 not including shipping, and had a 12 week lead time. The guy who I talked to was not overly helpful with the questions I had. I asked for the manual and they sent me a single 1 page pdf with next to no info on it. So yeah the US company definitely lost out in every way that they could. Besides the US made lift probably being slightly better quality, it was in no way worth the premium over the Chinese one with the shitty customer service, cost, and information they could give me about it.
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Yup,
I never added family members to my FB. High school friends & current friends only. Though most of them are not 'followed' so I never see what they share. The majority of my feed is select news outlets, cars, miatas, cars, more cars, road racing, local tracks, Dabble of F1 bc COTA, local car group posts, miata group posts, memes, kitties & funny videos.
I never added family members to my FB. High school friends & current friends only. Though most of them are not 'followed' so I never see what they share. The majority of my feed is select news outlets, cars, miatas, cars, more cars, road racing, local tracks, Dabble of F1 bc COTA, local car group posts, miata group posts, memes, kitties & funny videos.
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Yup,
I never added family members to my FB. High school friends & current friends only. Though most of them are not 'followed' so I never see what they share. The majority of my feed is select news outlets, cars, miatas, cars, more cars, road racing, local tracks, Dabble of F1 bc COTA, local car group posts, miata group posts, memes, kitties & funny videos.![likecat](https://www.miataturbo.net/images/smilies/likecat.png)
I never added family members to my FB. High school friends & current friends only. Though most of them are not 'followed' so I never see what they share. The majority of my feed is select news outlets, cars, miatas, cars, more cars, road racing, local tracks, Dabble of F1 bc COTA, local car group posts, miata group posts, memes, kitties & funny videos.
![likecat](https://www.miataturbo.net/images/smilies/likecat.png)
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Another thing to consider is long-term support. A lift is not something you buy and throw away in a couple years, it's a significant piece of equipment that I'd expect to last 10-20 years. Obviously there's always a risk of companies going belly up, but I think there's a good chance Bend-pak is still going to be around, and will have parts available for the lift I buy today. I have zero confidence that a no-name Chinese lift manufacturer will be the same.
As for customer support, I will say that my experiences with Bend-pak in no way matched those with your unnamed company. They answered the phone promptly, transferred me to a support guy (who was sitting at a desk, not answering his cell phone wile driving down the freeway), answered all my questions, and referred me to a local dealer through whom I could order the lift (and who could set it up for me if I wanted to pay them to do that). Basically they handled everything in a professional manner, exactly like I expected them to.
--Ian
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-Reason #9 I don't use facebook: My wife posted a picture of us from a Christmas party on her account and tagged me in the photo yesterday. She sent a text to me today telling me people she didn't know but I knew were posting replies to it and asking me questions as if I posted it. "Yep, that's how it works," I told her. "You sent an email and possibly a smart phone alert to every single person on my friends list to specially tell them where I was and what I was doing and who with and show them the picture. Hell, I've even been tagged in pictures I was not in just because some dumbass wanted me to see them."
I only go on the damn thing once every 6 weeks but had to go in and I changed my settings. I took a moment to cruise through the "feed" and was not surprised. Stupid **** and old people learning to web. Poorly done political meme, amazon advertisement of the last thing I looked at, love Jesus click like, advertisement, something stupid about Dwayne "the rock" Johnson, advertisement, ISIS/muslims suck meme, advertisement, somebody's stupid kids, credit card advertisement, the Dems want to take your guns meme, somebody's dog in a costume, ---Yep, I'm not missing a chromeplated emmefffing thing by keeping facebook out of my life.
I set almost everything to "me only" and "must be approved by me." And, no, it isn't linked at all to my cellphone. I will not use my phone to access it if I ever do.
/rant
I only go on the damn thing once every 6 weeks but had to go in and I changed my settings. I took a moment to cruise through the "feed" and was not surprised. Stupid **** and old people learning to web. Poorly done political meme, amazon advertisement of the last thing I looked at, love Jesus click like, advertisement, something stupid about Dwayne "the rock" Johnson, advertisement, ISIS/muslims suck meme, advertisement, somebody's stupid kids, credit card advertisement, the Dems want to take your guns meme, somebody's dog in a costume, ---Yep, I'm not missing a chromeplated emmefffing thing by keeping facebook out of my life.
I set almost everything to "me only" and "must be approved by me." And, no, it isn't linked at all to my cellphone. I will not use my phone to access it if I ever do.
/rant
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I had an old boss buy a ten year old US made lift and it managed to get my truck stuck up on it the first time we tested it. Needed two new cylinders, wouldn't lift up off the support hooks.
If I remember right that were half the cost of a china lift, and he'd already paid china lift prices for the used thing.
![](https://www.miataturbo.net/attachments/insert-bs-here-4/157185-how-why-ramble-your-goat-sideways-dgymyap.jpg?dateline=1449868905)
I wonder though, how many parts of a lift are actually specific to that lift. I'd bet it's not a lot, at all. Universal replacement parts for days, it's why all the china lifts look identical, and those look identical to bendpaks. Universal parts
If I remember right that were half the cost of a china lift, and he'd already paid china lift prices for the used thing.
![](https://www.miataturbo.net/attachments/insert-bs-here-4/157185-how-why-ramble-your-goat-sideways-dgymyap.jpg?dateline=1449868905)
I wonder though, how many parts of a lift are actually specific to that lift. I'd bet it's not a lot, at all. Universal replacement parts for days, it's why all the china lifts look identical, and those look identical to bendpaks. Universal parts
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Edit: I also had a very positive experience with Bend-pak, and I called about 3-4 different times asking all sorts of questions about several different lifts. I would have liked to buy one of their models, but it just didn't fit my situation.
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rebar poured all over the 60'x60' slab. fast forward to 2/15 and i finally bought a lift. (the hangar was built in
2001.) best thing ever. i got mine from http://www.gregsmithequipment.com. they have a showroom here in atlanta
with all the different models set up. i went with the atlas pv-10p, a 10,000 lb lift since i "might" someday want
to lift the crewcab diesel dually. all that's been on it since february though is miatas. we bought a $800 '93 for
my son that had an automatic transmission with "just" first gear. we had several 5-speeds sitting around that
we could swap in. i went back to greg smith equipment to get a transmission jack. the salesman told me "you
don't want to buy one of ours they leak, go get one from northern tools." so i got this one:
Strongway 2-Stage Telescoping Transmission Jack — 1/2 Ton Capacity | Transmission Jacks| Northern Tool + Equipment
and it made changing the transmission into an easy job. moral of the story, i think the greg smith guys are straight
up. i had mine installed for an extra $500. money EXTREMELY well spent. for that they picked it up at greg smith,
brought it 70 miles to my hangar, and had it up in 3 hours. the installers said that they sometimes have to walk
away because the concrete is so crappy or thin (or both). they tested it with no load and 110v, i had to run the 220v
wiring. i'm retired and not as nimble as i used to be, there's no way i'd give up the lift. go for it.
Last edited by portabull; 12-13-2015 at 12:03 PM. Reason: typo
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Got bored this morning and decided to look into this.
I took the published specs for the Kernel HR6K-70 scissor lift, and used BluBeam to transpose them onto the dimensional drawing of the underside of an NA based on the image printed in the Mazda bodyshop manual. Then I used that to scale a picture of the underside of a Miata on a 2-post lift provided by FM, and superimposed the lifting pads in red.
This image isn't perfect (the FM picture wasn't precisely plumb, and has a little barrel distortion), but it's probably accurate to within an inch or two:
![](https://www.miataturbo.net/attachments/insert-bs-here-4/157336-how-why-ramble-your-goat-sideways-80-kernel_hr6k_70_underside_b61e6ab6bd6d3c3ff2fd68e2bb7205cc11fe3def.jpg?dateline=1450034181)
I'd take that over a 4-post unit, which blocks slightly less width but from front to back, and prevents any sort of brake / suspension work without the use of additional jacks.
I took the published specs for the Kernel HR6K-70 scissor lift, and used BluBeam to transpose them onto the dimensional drawing of the underside of an NA based on the image printed in the Mazda bodyshop manual. Then I used that to scale a picture of the underside of a Miata on a 2-post lift provided by FM, and superimposed the lifting pads in red.
This image isn't perfect (the FM picture wasn't precisely plumb, and has a little barrel distortion), but it's probably accurate to within an inch or two:
![](https://www.miataturbo.net/attachments/insert-bs-here-4/157336-how-why-ramble-your-goat-sideways-80-kernel_hr6k_70_underside_b61e6ab6bd6d3c3ff2fd68e2bb7205cc11fe3def.jpg?dateline=1450034181)
I'd take that over a 4-post unit, which blocks slightly less width but from front to back, and prevents any sort of brake / suspension work without the use of additional jacks.