Cars falling off lifts

crispins

crispins

"With all due respect"
Joined
May 21, 2020
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846
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Pigeon Forge, TN
I have no idea why but I find it very interesting.

Years ago there was a website that had a ton of pics of cars that fell off lifts.

This one was at a GM dealership, you would think GM would train their techs on how to properly lift a GM vehicle.

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This weirds me out any time I have something on my rack. Any vehicle thats on it, there's a point about half way up from my pov that it looks uneven and crooked and ready to fall.

The worst is my truck. CCLB super duty. Arms are put alllllll the way out and I have less than an inch to play with to reach the rear spring mount and the front goes in the rounded radius arms. Its awful.
 
I used to work for a guy who owned a junk yard, super old 2 post lift with cylinders below the floor. This guy would step over $100 dollar bills to pick up a penny. This lift was so worn out and sloppy, hydraulic fluid around the cylinders everytime you used it.

Whenever you let the rack down, it would always rock back and forth pretty good. This was when I was in high school, so I learned to always set it up so that when its bouncing on the lift on the way down it wont fall off. :lmao:
 
I have an Atlas 9k here and I get the vehicle about 6" off the ground and then re-inspect, then bounce it by pushing down on the bumper firmly a few times to look for any bluetooth pad contact or signs of scary **** lol. I hate being under the vehicles and do my best to spend as little time there as possible.
 
Alexis700 said:
I used to work for a guy who owned a junk yard, super old 2 post lift with cylinders below the floor. This guy would step over $100 dollar bills to pick up a penny. This lift was so worn out and sloppy, hydraulic fluid around the cylinders everytime you used it.
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Worked at a ****hole shop like that out of high school. There was an antiquated lift that required you to walk to each post to release the locks independently. The hydraulics would bleed down so fast you literally had to run to the opposite post to release the lock before it bled back down. Several mishaps at that shop from shoddy equipment and morons they hired.
 
D_JEEPER said:
I have an Atlas 9k here and I get the vehicle about 6" off the ground and then re-inspect, then bounce it by pushing down on the bumper firmly a few times to look for any bluetooth pad contact or signs of scary **** lol. I hate being under the vehicles and do my best to spend as little time there as possible.
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This has always been SOP for me.

I'm not all that comfortable under them either. My truck is the worst. I put the tall jackstands under the front axle for anything more than an oil change. That round radius arm on the flat pad makes me so uneasy.

I really should get new pads or something. I think rubber over the steel may be better. no idea.
 
Its weird. I hardly worry about anything, but one of the few things I do worry about, is leaving vehicles on my life overnight, I'm always imagining walking into the shop with them falling off.
Like Woods said, my truck bothers me the most.
I use two support screw jack stands for a little piece of mind.
 
My 2 post still makes me nervous. I do the same as above where I stop half a foot up and give it a shake test and have a good look at every contact point before proceeding. I always put tall jack stands under each corner if I am going to be doing anything that will significantly affect the COG.

I much prefer my 4 post for most jobs. I only really use the 2 post if I need to lift the body off the frame or if I need all 4 wheels off the ground for a tire change, brake job or something else where it is beneficial to not have anything below the wheels.
 
Wheelin66bronco said:
Its weird. I hardly worry about anything, but one of the few things I do worry about, is leaving vehicles on my life overnight, I'm always imagining walking into the shop with them falling off.
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Yawp. Same. I'll leave it with the wheels off the ground a few inches.

When I did the RMS and trans mount on my parent's 97TJ, I had it in the air for a few days. Didn't like that at all.

edit: makes me feel better that I'm not the only one nervous about these. :laughing:
 
I end up checking my Asymmetric Rotary right before the arms hit the vehicle and then again once its lifted. The two worst things I lift are my Superduty like woods, although I put my rear arms on the leafspring at the hanger, and the fronts on the frame by the transfer case - I can't really reach the radius arms with the truck height adapters on. It feels very wrong, but its also fairly stable there - bonus suck points for I can't open the door on the Asymmetric so I have to drop it in Neutral a few feet away and push it, which is a PITA if it goes up for an extended project and kills the battery from not being able to take the key out. The other is my Wife's XJ with a front Long Arm - every time you lift it and set it back down, the track bar pushes the front over a little bit because we don't have limit straps in it - Thats the only thing I ever panicked because I thought I was gonna drop it before I realized what was happening.
 
woods said:
Yawp. Same. I'll leave it with the wheels off the ground a few inches.

When I did the RMS and trans mount on my parent's 97TJ, I had it in the air for a few days. Didn't like that at all.

edit: makes me feel better that I'm not the only one nervous about these. :laughing:
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Fear will breed caution.

The pads on my lift are rubber on top so that is nice, especially when I can dig into a bolt head or rivet head or something. I did see posts about arms randomly tearing under load, but I wonder what their use/abuse history is to allow that. It also always sketches me out when I have the telescoping arms out near max. I understand torque/bending moments so that makes it that much worse.

Using a screw jack under the vehicle is definitely a nice thing and I figure it might buy me an extra second or so of GTFOOH before everything comes crashing down if it were to.
 
djljeep said:
I end up checking my Asymmetric Rotary right before the arms hit the vehicle and then again once its lifted. The two worst things I lift are my Superduty like woods, although I put my rear arms on the leafspring at the hanger, and the fronts on the frame by the transfer case - I can't really reach the radius arms with the truck height adapters on. It feels very wrong, but its also fairly stable there - bonus suck points for I can't open the door on the Asymmetric so I have to drop it in Neutral a few feet away and push it, which is a PITA if it goes up for an extended project and kills the battery from not being able to take the key out. The other is my Wife's XJ with a front Long Arm - every time you lift it and set it back down, the track bar pushes the front over a little bit because we don't have limit straps in it - Thats the only thing I ever panicked because I thought I was gonna drop it before I realized what was happening.
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We have a 24 F250 and I do not go to the radius arms on the front. I use the big flat pad right before it
 
bad zuki said:
:lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao:
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This.

I've sat through the lift training, it's a 30 minute video of corporate ass covering that's very non vehicle specific. Most **** you can more or less just kick the arms under and be ok. It's pick up trucks and other **** with weird centers of gravity you really have to pay attention with.

I always lifted **** just high enough for the tires to be off the ground and then gave it a shake to be sure, but then I was always on my own time working on my own **** not in a hurry.
 
For YEARS I had to drive a few towns over to have my truck on a lift. Mainly state inspections. Everyone nearby told me they didn't have a lift for a Super Duty. I thought they were bull****ting me and just didn't want to look at the truck.

Now that I have my own, I can see why. I'm pretty sure I'm the only guy in town that can put an SD into the air.
 
woods said:
The worst is my truck. CCLB super duty. Arms are put alllllll the way out and I have less than an inch to play with to reach the rear spring mount and the front goes in the rounded radius arms. Its awful.
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I hate lifting ford F250 cc anything and bigger. Hell, same as new Chevy trucks. The correct lift points are just out of reach.
 
Rttoys said:
I hate lifting ford F250 cc anything and bigger. Hell, same as new Chevy trucks. The correct lift points are just out of reach.
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Guy I work with, I put his CCSB GM on it, and right to the frame rails. Straight up took 2m to get it in the air. That alone, has me looking at GM/Chevy for my next 3/4T.
 
crispins said:
2 things

1) yeah that seems sketchy as hell to me, both how extended the rear arms are and where you have the fronts, should never be on something that moves

2) you sound 100% the same as Clift from Cheers

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1) Yep, but its the only way to do it.

2) You're the first to mention that, and wow I agree. :laughing:
 
woods said:
Guy I work with, I put his CCSB GM on it, and right to the frame rails. Straight up took 2m to get it in the air. That alone, has me looking at GM/Chevy for my next 3/4T.
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GM trucks till about 2015 are stupid simple to lift, because the frame stays low all the way to the front. Then they changed the frame and put “lift pads” up front. This isn’t a problem if there’s nothing in the bed, but my work trucks were loaded down, so you have to push the way forward to get the cog correct. This puts the pads out of the arms reach. Makes it very tricky.

Now I can’t unhear you sounding like Cliff :laughing:
 
My buddy and I built a drift car on a 2 post that you needed one guy to run the pump and another to stuff the dunnage under the arm with the blown seals. Other side locked. Car would be on the lift for weeks at a time. The arms were so bent and twisted from **** falling off and using it as a crane
 
I dont know what lifts they use at the dealerships my friend works at but I have seen F550 service trucks up in the air. I am usually there after hours so they are left up in the air too. I have never heard of them dropping anything.

I think when I build a shop I want to get 2 lifts one in front of the other to pick up heavy long things. May not be possible but in my head it works.
 
I have two 10k 2-post in my work shop, one 10k 2-post and one 4-post at my home shop. the two at work obviously go up and down multiple times a day. we run everything up them, including ton trucks. i had a very worn 12k 4-post here and it mostly served the ton trucks and larger but it was mostly in the way. so out it went last fall and in came another 2-post. its been a great change for the work flow. at home i have my square body cab on my 2-post while i get the chassis finished up, its a roller now and getting close to putting the cab back on for the last time. on my 4-post I store my z06 for the winter. a guy cant have too many lifts.

work lifts getting cars inside during a hail storm, we packed in 9!

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KungFooMASTA said:
I dont know what lifts they use at the dealerships my friend works at but I have seen F550 service trucks up in the air. I am usually there after hours so they are left up in the air too. I have never heard of them dropping anything.

I think when I build a shop I want to get 2 lifts one in front of the other to pick up heavy long things. May not be possible but in my head it works.
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The guy that setup my Mohawk, said he installed the 140k one at the airport. Made to lift the fuel tanker.

I setup my shop with three lift pads. A big one in the center that extends to both bays, and one on each outer side. That way I can always add a second lift if I need it.
 
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