Subject: New (to me) 2-post car lift acquisition. Author: davidc (moderator) : member since December, 2003 : 10552 posts Posted on: 2008-04-11 00:41:51

I recently attended an auction for an Aamco transmission service company that was closing, and picked up this Bend-Pak 2-post, 10,000-lb, asynmetrical car lift for a song. It's only three years old, too.



My wife and I were able to get it disassembled and loaded onto a flat-bed trailer (thanks, JoeC!!!) and it's now sitting in pieces on the floor of my garage. I need to order new concrete anchors and some small items for installation.

Here's an important tip, though. Don't try to use non-factory anchors to install a lift. The factory-supplied anchors are specially tempered and rated to resist high sheer loads and stresses that anchors from your local bolt supplier might not. It's not worth it to have a potentially deadly problem a few years down the road for the extra $5 per bolt (there are 12 in all) that it costs to get them from Bend-Pak. Just my $0.02 opinion, but if it helps someone avoid a disaster, it's good to know.

The reason the lift was was priced so low is that it has a three-phase, 220V motor. I checked with Bend-Pak and the single-phase 220V motor costs a whopping $700, so I'm researching ways to build or acquire a three-pase rotary converter. I've read that a 3-phase rotary converer can be built using another 3-phase motor with some capacitors for relatively little money, so that's my next project (if you don't count clearing the garage for a place to stand the lift up). If anyone has information on converting a three-phase motor to single phase, I would really like to know about it.

David Cecil
Lexington, KY
'97 740iL, 166k miles
'92 750iL, 92k miles
'86 735i, 101k miles
'77 320i, 80k miles and sitting under a tree for 20 years (a future resto project)

Visit e38.org for everything technical about your BMW



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• New (to me) 2-post car lift acquisition. (pic) - davidc 2008-04-11 00:41:51 (522 views)
  • What does the installation look like now that its complete? (nt) - Shled 2008-11-03 17:42:42 (32 views)
  • Congrats on the lift David, lets see some installed pics! (nt) - 04sshd© 2008-10-15 12:54:16 (48 views)
  • Hooray! I finally got it installed! (nt) - davidc 2008-10-06 15:07:33 (67 views)
    • sweet! any upcoming projects that will give it use? (nt) - ghw 2008-10-08 09:43:09 (48 views)
      • Plenty of projects to do. I think I'll start with easy ones like flushing the - davidc 2008-10-09 03:16:10 (51 views)
  • Re: New (to me) 2-post car lift acquisition. - tugman3461 2008-07-17 08:00:27 (162 views)
    • I checked with Northern Hydraulics and (url) - davidc 2008-10-09 14:18:26 (56 views)
  • David.... any news on the lift? (nt) - eaglecomm 2008-05-20 00:23:22 (134 views)
    • Nothing new to report yet. It's still sitting in pieces on my garage floor. (nt) - davidc 2008-05-20 00:46:25 (141 views)
  • Try here for Phase converters (url) - tomf301 2008-04-14 18:10:46 (190 views)
    • Just FYI, I found phase-a-matic.com selling phase converters, too. (url) - davidc 2008-08-29 11:16:50 (86 views)
    • Thanks! That's an interesting site. - davidc 2008-04-17 17:02:58 (146 views)
  • Re: New (to me) 2-post car lift acquisition. - ghw 2008-04-11 14:15:12 (156 views)
    • I'll try to find one, but I don't yet know where to start. (nt) - davidc 2008-04-13 13:23:40 (144 views)
      • Re: I'll try to find one, but I don't yet know where to start. - ghw 2008-04-13 22:22:28 (148 views)
        • It's a bend-pak MX-10AC (nt) - davidc 2008-04-14 00:43:04 (201 views)
  • Nice find David....wish I could help with the three phase, - 750il96erbill 2008-04-11 12:48:04 (148 views)
  • Wooow, we need a PALACE here in CA for those lifts. :-)))))) (nt) - bmw635 2008-04-11 02:09:13 (173 views)