TRINITONY

http://www.costco.com/Dannmar-MaxJax...&storeId=10301

IXLR8

I recently bought one and its being bolted in this weekend, unfortunately at the non-sale price.

If you're thinking about one, grab one while it is on sale. Costco does not offer any price protection and would not refund the difference as so many of the stores I deal with do. I did get a full refund on my membership though.

Slow Guy

I passed this along to one of my PCA Club members who has been asking about it.

Thanks Tony.

IXLR8

Bill, get them to verify their floor thickness. After cutting my concrete floor for my MaxJax installation (I chose another install route), I noticed my concrete slab was quite a bit thinner in some areas than the 4" in the spec sheet for the home.

Also, there seems to be some confusion as to minimum concrete thickness for the lift and the minimum concrete thickness for the supplied anchors.

From my MaxJax manual...




I can see why I've read some owner posts where they complained about their anchors being loose when trying to torque up the lift attach bolts.

The Wej-It sheet for the Power Drop PD-58 supplied anchors...

DocTock993

Hmmm, I wonder if the owners of my new place would mind if I sunk these bolts in the garage...
(sigh - another rental house)

jhg41977

Which do you guys prefer? Scissor style or two post? I'm still not sure which route to take. I like the two post but I don't like having more stuff to store/work around. But the scissor lift makes the center of the car impossible to reach. I don't need to get to the center often. Also, does the scissor style damage the underside at a when you lift? Seems like you are lifting using panels that are not designed to be pushed on.

budge96

I'd imagine you'd need to do a test drill on your floor in a remote area to check for thickness ,I actually
laid half my garage at my folks where my workshop is and to tell the truth I'm not certain of the depth
If I remember correctly it's about 6 inches but I know the finisher who did it and can easily confirm.
I'm not that impressed with the max jack despite it looking compact the theory is not that comforting...
I have a scissor presently and it has been invaluable for various repairs and updates particularly with
wheels ,brakes ,suspensions,oil lines,a/c condensors etc,even body moulding made everything more
accessable.
The scissor has arms that extend to meet the lift points ,at least the bend pak does,very substantial
and you can reach the center of the car simply need a good reach..haha, Bert

jhg41977

With wither route I had planned on chopping the floor up and replacing with a substantial pad underneath the uprights or the scissor lift. I would like to recess the scissor lift into the floor. The portability of the maxx jack is a bit concerning but it seems like everyone has had good experiences. Thanks Bert

IXLR8

I went back and forth countless times deciding between the two. I had the opportunity to see both types in action locally.

In the end, I decided on the 2-post MaxJax because I wanted full access to the bottom of the car. If you plan on dropping the engine/transmission, it is more difficult with a scissor lift, although there is a mod floating around on the web where you cut one of the cross members out of the lift.

The other factor was concrete work to install. In either case it involved work; either to pour pads for the MaxJax (I didn't trust my floor, good thing too) or a sunken pad for the scissors lift because I wasn't about to drive on 2 x 12s to clear the scissor lift. Magdaddy and at least another RL member (gtroth ?) sunk their scissor lift into the garage floor for a professional looking job.

BTW, the scissors lift comes with different height jack pads to lift any car at its jack points. No issue with damage.

Slow Guy

I've had both, each has their advantages/disadvantages. When I dropped the engine on the 993 I had the BendPak scissor, worked fine. Wish I could have both but if there's ever a chance you'll want to do clutch work on a front engine car the MaxJax is the way to go.

IXLR8

I dug up that very well written up Modifying Bendpak MD-6XP for a Porsche article.

This mod apparently allows the user to drop the engine/transmission straight down as opposed to having to angle the two slightly while pulling them back to clear that crossbar on the lift. The latter based on responses from RL and Garage Journal members when I asked about that cross bar possibly getting in the way.

Anyway, the pics describe it all very nicely.

nine9six

Great thread!...A scissor jack is in my near future.

jhg41977

I was thinking if I sunk the lift into the floor I would be able to lift the car, set it on stands and then drop the lift. Then I would be able to slide a sheet of plywood over the lift and get to the center of the car for engine/transmission needs.

IXLR8

That is exactly what a RL member did and what a professional looking job it was. They even put a groove in the concrete for the plywood sheet to sit in.

I think they may have even run the hydraulic line through a pipe in the concrete.


Found the thread, gtroth's Center of gravity relative to lift points? See post #17 for pics of the actual installation.

I love that attention to detail and the calculations...

PorscheDoc

I worked for about 2 years professionally with this MD-6XP in the blog post, and have 2 posts at the shop, and have worked on 4 posts as well. The above MD6XP probably saw 200-300 cars on it in that time. Numerous motor drops, transmission drops, clutch jobs on 944's, etc. The only thing I really couldn't do on it was remove a 3" 951 catpipe as you have to rotate them out 90 degrees to the passenger side. You can even do cayenne driveshaft R&R's under them no problem. There is really isn't much you can't do on this lift. You can still access the belly of the car for minor work. With that being said.....Without a doubt (if you are looking for a maintenance use lift), if you can go 2 post do it. I couldn't do the max jack due to slop of my garage floor, and not wanting to kill the other stall for parking (I wasn't able to take the post up and down every day due to the number of cars I had to store on any given day, and my garage is a basic two car width). I highly considered that option first.

My 2 cents is think very carefully about sinking it in the ground. One....water run off on a wet car, cleaning the garage, etc. Unless you have drain in the pit, you will have a metal lift sitting in water. Over time that isn't going to end well for the lift. Plus if you spill oil or coolant (I'm sure many would put other cars on the lifts than the aircooled stuff), it would be a royal pain to clean up. Ramps aren't ideal, but they allow you to hose out your garage to clean up messes, etc. Two...if you ever plan on dropping the motor/trans, you want to be able to get your table or atv jack, etc rolled under the car as far as possible. A pit might prevent that, unless you built some sort of box you could set in the pit to roll the wheels past the pit lip. Ramps are really a zero issue, pulling on and off them is no big deal.

If anyone needs any more info on the mod to the bendpak, feel free to contact me, though I think the blog is pretty straight forward on it. Not sure why they haven't incorporated this design yet, my blog gets hit about 30-40 times a day from google and forum links on the subject. She doesn't get much use anymore now that I have 7500 sq/ft at the shop, just one long term project sitting on her for the next few months.

Oh and one other note. I did finally bolt down some thick aluminum plates (I can measure, but are probably 1/8-3/16" plates) for the rollers to ride on. That many times up and down, and it did eventually start to hint at grooving the floor where the wheels ride. Some aluminum plates, a concrete drill bit and some concrete screws took care of that. I would do that from the get go if I were doing it again.