A-Frame lifts (e.g. Brenner etc.)

[JakeL]

Hey all,

Friend of mine is looking to practice his TIG skills, and I suggested he make a nifty A-frame winch mount for lifting the Stohr on and off the setup table.

I've seen a few nifty ones over the years that are A-shaped, made out of aluminum. Winch is mounted on top with a pulley to make it easy to lift the car.

Was curious if any of ya'll have information or pictures on ones that you've built, e.g. what material types, sizes, thicknesses, and/or other design details you integrated that made things useful? battery mount details? Casters that worked particularly well?

Thanks for any thoughts,

-Jake

[mikey]

I haven't built a lift, but recently built a dolly for my Lola and really like the casters I found from casterconnection.com

I picked out some 750lb rated swivel casters 5" wheels and installed swivel locks on two of them so I can have four swivel or two swivel and two fixed at any time.

For an A-frame, I'd probably go with a larger wheel to make it even easier to move around and over things.

Also, consider an A-frame design that allows folding or disassembly for flat storage against a wall or something. I don't weld, so I will probably build one out of slotted aluminum (80/20) sometime. that's what I made my dolly out of so I could even switch parts back and forth if I want.

[S Lathrop]

Years ago I built a lift such as you are describing. But I used exhaust tubing ( mild steel, welded seam, .049 wall). I had it designed to use a 12 volt wench to lift the cars. I used it for many years. I carried it in the trailer and used it at the race track. John LaRue has the lift now.

The first job I did with the lift was to help a horse get up on her feet.

At some point I added casters so I could move a car around.

I may still have drawings, if I can find them.

[Rick Kirchner]

I just shamelessly copied the Brenner lift. Used a bunch of trailer hitch tubing for the T's that have the casters, the uprights, and the ends of the cross beam. The cross beam was a thinwall 2x6 from a surplus place that serves the oil industry. I welded in heavy gussets on each side of the T's that support the sockets for the uprights. It's god awful heavy - the cross-beam is like 80 lbs, each of the uprights are 60 and the T's are 40-ish. One person can put it together but the risk of injury doing so is not insignificant.

I haven't done the calculations, but I bet you could lift 4000 lbs with it. The limiting factor is not the structure - it's the casters. I've used it to pull stumps and I stack 4X4s under the T's to take the weight off the casters. Doing it again I'd get the largest diameter metal casters that I could afford. Mine are sort of a medium-durometer solid rubber tire with a plastic center. When loaded, the tires don't roll easily (sometimes a good thing) but you can roll over little items on the garage floor. Metal casters will often chock up against a washer for a #8 screw....

Here are my suggestions: Skip the battery and the winch. Winches rated for vertical lift are expensive. Getting rid of those two items will also save you probably 75 lbs. I use a lever ratchet chain hoist and it works great. The only problem with this is it reduces the height that you can lift stuff since the hoist hangs under the cross beam instead of being mounted to the side of it.

For these reasons, make it as tall as possible. If your garage isn't the limiting factor, I'd simulate a sling load of an engine crate, and then set the height so you can easily load that into a pickup truck. Also make the cross beam wide enough to easily get it across your truck without having to take too much care. In my case I only have a couple inches to spare, so I have to pad the uprights and it won't quite get an engine in the bed - I'm about 3" short, so I have to let the air out of the back tires! But my garage height is my limiting factor.

You can probably make that same design out of aluminum - all the same tubing sizes are available. It would weigh about half as much and that's pretty usable. Maybe make the cross beam an I-beam instead of a tube so you can use a hoist trolley. Otherwise you would have to figure out how to hang the hoist on something steel.

[S Lathrop]

Here is a picture of what I made. It can be dissembled in minutes and is reasonably light.

[DanW]

Suggest you contact Gary Hickman "ghickman" in F1000 group. He had a brilliant lift design that was easy to assemble, broke down to a very compact package and would also allow you to load a car into a box truck without ramps.

[lowside67]

Suggest you contact Gary Hickman "ghickman" in F1000 group. He had a brilliant lift design that was easy to assemble, broke down to a very compact package and would also allow you to load a car into a box truck without ramps.

Which F1000 group?

-Mark

[triumph76]

Hopefully Mr. Hickman will offer to share the design so 923 of us don't bombard him with a request.

[DanW]

Hopefully Mr. Hickman will offer to share the design so 923 of us don't bombard him with a request.

That's a great idea. Better yet, let the OP only ask Gary for info. In one of Gary's posts he said he will build them for customers. VERY lightweight.

[lowside67]

Does anybody have a picture of one at least? I had no luck locating one.

-Mark

[Bob Wright]

https://www.apexspeed.com/forums/sho...lift-and-stand

I have built two of these (shamelessly poached Brenner concept) . Cross beam 2x3 light wall rectangular tubing, verticals 2x2 light wall, lower support pieces 2x3 light wall, bracing 1x1 light wall. HF 8" solid wheels, HF winch. I got all the tubing cut to size at Metal Supermarkets. Its a little more complicated as I made it collapsible so I could load it in the trailer. I'll post some pics later. I think the whole thing cost ~$500.

[Richard Hybels]

There is a bit of a debate about the use of a winch versus a hoist on a formula car lift. I know of one lift that has been in use at least since 2008 an$ was in use at Laguna a couple of weeks ago. It has a Super Winch x1 mounted and has been no problem.
I have a lift that has a Superwinch sac1000 and has been no problem and it is rated at only 1000 pounds line pull bu5 it is a 110 volt one that weighs 35 pounds itself. Use of what I call a snatch block doubles the ability of the winch.
So the debate is settled for me. Winch with snatch block works fine.
My top piece is about 70 Pounds with winch which makes it quite hard to assemble by myself. Do the engineers think a 2” tube of fairly thick wall would suffice for a 1000 pound car?

[lowside67]

There is a bit of a debate about the use of a winch versus a hoist on a formula car lift. I know of one lift that has been in use at least since 2008 an$ was in use at Laguna a couple of weeks ago. It has a Super Winch x1 mounted and has been no problem.
I have a lift that has a Superwinch sac1000 and has been no problem and it is rated at only 1000 pounds line pull bu5 it is a 110 volt one that weighs 35 pounds itself. Use of what I call a snatch block doubles the ability of the winch.
So the debate is settled for me. Winch with snatch block works fine.
My top piece is about 70 Pounds with winch which makes it quite hard to assemble by myself. Do the engineers think a 2” tube of fairly thick wall would suffice for a 1000 pound car?

It's very easy to find deflection calculators for various tube sizes online, I'd go that way. I suspect a 2x3" tube with half the wall thickness of the 2x2" would probably still be as strong or strong with less weight.

-Mark

[DanW]

There is a bit of a debate about the use of a winch versus a hoist on a formula car lift. I know of one lift that has been in use at least since 2008 an$ was in use at Laguna a couple of weeks ago. It has a Super Winch x1 mounted and has been no problem.
I have a lift that has a Superwinch sac1000 and has been no problem and it is rated at only 1000 pounds line pull bu5 it is a 110 volt one that weighs 35 pounds itself. Use of what I call a snatch block doubles the ability of the winch.
So the debate is settled for me. Winch with snatch block works fine.
My top piece is about 70 Pounds with winch which makes it quite hard to assemble by myself. Do the engineers think a 2” tube of fairly thick wall would suffice for a 1000 pound car?

I know how hard it is to assemble that lift. Greg Mercurio shortened the vertical posts to the lift would fit assembled in his trailer after the car was loaded. He seldom took it apart.

Regards,
Dan