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  • Several Regions have held meetups already, but others are being planned or are evaluating the interest. The Calgary Area Meetup is set for Saturday July 12th at 10am. The signup thread is here! Arbutus has also explored interest in a Fraser Valley meetup but it seems members either missed his thread or had other plans. Let him know if you are interested in a meetup later in the year by posting here! Slowpoke is trying to pull together an Ottawa area meetup later this summer. No date has been selected yet, so let him know if you are interested here! We are not aware of any other meetups being planned this year. If you are interested in doing something in your area, let everyone know and make it happen! Meetups are a great way to make new machining friends and get hands on help in your area. Don’t be shy, sign up and come, or plan your own meetup!

2002 VW Golf refurb

LOL, color, is easy to fix, make is not! Heston balers, Case is/was the same, different color, Heston mowers. Tractors, well, whatever you bring, just make sure it will start in cold weather, a few of many colors will not!
 
I spent way too much time scrunched under cars. When I was 20, I rented a two bedroom apartment about a garage. I installed an alarm for them for free with compensation that I could use the hoists after hours, I was in there many nights swapping parts. I really liked that apartment.

Forget flipping it on its side, just lift it up;-)
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KeeponDragon said:
A fella here in town used two engine stands for his 82 VW Rabbit. He had them braced where required to keep the works from buckling...but it still looked sketchy as frig to me...all so he could modify the underbelly for a syncro setup...
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That sounds super sketchy. I also saw two engine stands used to flip a 25 ft sailboat over. Also very sketchy.
I'll lay on my back for the time being :)
 
Sometimes I'm surprised I made it through my teens and 20's with the stuff I did. Had a few Fieros as my first cars, cheap cause nobody wanted to work on them. To do the clutch the engine and tranny came out the bottom, with the subframe. Wish I had a picture, was very much a case of it looks like it'll fall over. Jacked up in back and propped on cinder blocks and wood, with the front still on the ground. Subframe, with engine, transmission and rear suspension rolled out from under the car that is sitting at about a 40 degree angle. I always made sure that it was stable but it looked sketchy as hell. Fun times.
Now in my 50"s I'm done with that stuff, I'm shopping for a 2 or 4 post lift, maybe with garage and property attached to it!
 
slow-poke said:
Four post lifts are not as expensive as one might think. IIRC I paid about $2500 (pre COVID).

Takes about 3 hours to install.
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They do take up a lot of room though.
Mine is moveable and I have to constantly resist the urge to just set it at about 3 feet, cover it with boards and have the biggest worktable ever.
If I did that , I'd never have a car on it again.
In fact right now there is the rolling frame of the Datsun on the lift, the body on a rotisserie underneath, the 16 Ft carhauler behind it waiting for brakes, the skid steer parked behind that waiting for a oil change which means I'm out in the driveway working on the old Ford in the rain like Joe Dirt.
 
picture for context (not mine), I didn't even have an engine hoist back then either.
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I'm debating 2 vrs 4 post lift and all the issues around them - 2 post needs reinforced pads and I know my floor is bad in my garage, 4 post is not as nice from a working on car perspective (wheels aren't unloaded without an additional jack), and on a 4 post can't remove subframes.

then there is the fact my garage is realistically too small for any of them and I looking at moving to fix that issue.
 
Mike R said:
4 post is not as nice from a working on car perspective (wheels aren't unloaded without an additional jack)
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The easy fix for that is a couple of rolling bridge jacks.
The problem with the easy fix is that a couple of rolling bridge jacks will cost as much as the lift.
I bought a sliding bridge jack the year after buying the lift. First time I used it the safety failed and the jack collapsed, dropping the Chev van back onto the lift while I was under it. No casualties other than a pair of shorts.
The replacement jack had the shaft of the ram bend about an inch off straight under load on the first lift.
The third one the safety was nonfunctional from the start, even though it was a different style from the first one.
Back to bottle jacks for me. Lift King had some manufacturing issues with their supplier in China.
My brother in law bought a Bendpak instead with 2 rolling bridge jacks and has never had a problem. He paid a lot more than I did but got a 14000 lb lift with 2 8000lb jacks. And hasn't had to buy new shorts.
 
There was a 4000lb quick jack for sale here for about 12 hrs. $1500. Almost jumped on it.
 
The 4 post does have a few nice features:
+ you can just drive on, i.e. no getting on all fours to adjust the lift pads.
+ Supplied with a tray that fits between the rails, can be used to say jack a transmission.
+ Can be moved with one person, even with the car on.
+ Sometimes it's an advantage to have the chassis loaded and at ride height
 
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