Finally bought a two post lift

[traut811]

There is a ton of information I have taken from this forum and the “other” one, so figured I would try to give back a bit. I’m a bit skeptical sometimes, and try not to just jump into things, so hopefully this will help someone out if you were in the same boat as me.

A little backstory: I have a couple projects I am working on (’69 Z28 that I have most of what I need purchased and ’68 C10 SWB that will be right behind it). Both will be getting aftermarket chassis, LS swapped, good brakes, etc. You have to work with what you’ve got, so at my previous garage I went up in the trusses, added lots of bracing, and spanned steel channel from one end to the other to support the weight of the Camaro body. I used chain hoists, and it worked very well for what it was. I could easily pull the body off in about 10 minutes. The Camaro has a Schwartz chassis so the body has been on and off several times.

I purchased a new house late last year. It has a 2 car attached garage, two story detached garage (25x25’ with two garage doors to the top and one in the basement) and a barn so I have more storage. Although I would prefer the shop be a little bigger, the two floors is turning out to be nicer than I thought. I plan to finish out the top to be pretty nice and just use it for storage/detailing. The sheet metal brake, blast cabinet, plasma, lathe, welders, etc. got stuck in the basement so it’s a work shop. The downside is I have 8’ (concrete hollow core) ceilings, so my chain hoist idea isn’t an option.

I’d been researching a short 2 post lifts for some time, and had seen the DANMAR name pop up several times. They offer a 6,000# portable two post lift that you can unbolt and move to the side if needed. Off my memory, lift height ~44” out of the box, with options for a 3” or 6” extension to get some more height out of it. I will admit, I did see some complaints early on, which I think was the MaxJax line, but they are several years into it now and believe all has been taken care of. There are pages and pages of people saying they love them on garage journal. After talking with Marco extensively and probably asked more questions than he thought possible, I felt pretty good about them. They also have them on sale right now (through the end of this month I believe), so jumped on it. I got the M6, which is ALI certified. Although a little more expensive than their standard lift, that tag is worth my peace of mind knowing I will be working under my car on it.

My purchase consisted of:

Dannmar M6 6000# lift

3” Extensions

6” Extensions

Frame cradle pads

MaxJax roll around chair

8gal telescoping drain tank


I had it delivered to a commercial address, but believe they can do lift gate to your door at residential as well. It was delivered right at a week from when I had ordered. They had it bolted on each end to a metal “cage” and the extra boxes were wrapped and banded on top. There were some battle scars endured from shipping, which I don’t blame on Dannmar, but Jeff was quick to send out replacement decals and touch up paint. One of the cover mounts had broken off, but it was an easy fix to weld it back on and told him it wasn’t a big deal.* One of the tabs for the roller wheels got bent in, which I still need to fix, but I think it was abuse from the shipping company and not the manufacturer itself.

You’ll need (from what I can see so far):

Hammerdrill and 7/8” concrete bit for the anchors

Air nozzle or brush to clean out holes drilled in concrete

Torque wrench for setting anchors

Metric hex wrenches (6mm set screw for fittings to the lift cylinder)

Phillips screwdriver for holding bolts when putting power cart together

Wrenches/ ratchet and sockets

Teflon tape if you decide to re-tape fittings

Vice for aide in putting fittings together

Crescent wrench for fittings

8qts of AW32 hydraulic oil

My plan is to tuck the lift off to one side so I can have a body on it and hopefully work on the chassis on the side of it. It will be tight in my garage, and may have to do some shifting of shop tools down there. I definitely wanted to leave plenty room to the side of the one side of the lift though for assembly room and just area to lay things to the side if needed.

Because my garage is a mess, I started small in the stack of things I received and got the rolling chair bolted together. I added a few washers and trimmed some extra material they had hanging out the front on the bottom, but it seems like a nice little chair for the money.

The lift itself was unbolted and began putting everything together. The power cart went together first. There were two holes that weren’t drilled in the cart, but it was a 5 minute fix so not a big deal. It seems nice and sturdy when bolted together.

Just for peace of mind, I pulled the manufacturer supplied Teflon tape off all fittings and re-taped them myself. I had seen several posts of people with leaking fittings (which usually can happen due to messed up Teflon taped fittings or just weren’t tightened enough), so this way I know the tape on the threads wasn’t compromised from being shipped halfway across the country.

NOTE: I had read before, and can see it now in person. BE CAREFUL when standing up the posts so the lift head does not slam down on your fingers. As long as it is slid down and through the cylinder, you will be fine. It would not feel good if you don’t do this though and have your hands in the wrong place.

The lift posts are not too bad to move around at all. They and the power cart roll easily. Hopefully tomorrow night I will be able to mark my post locations and get some anchors set in the ground. I opted for the standard Wej-It anchors. There had been complaints about a previously incorrect install method to install these listed, but by reading though that section, it appears the correct method is now in there using a sacrificial bolt and nut. I will then get the lines hooked up, get some oil in there and start bleeding the cylinders.



Everything so far has been done without a second set of hands.