Chesapeake Region
Maxjax Lift Install
Dan Zadra
I have always been able and wanted to work on my own vehicles. I stared with the quick jacks that get the vehicles off the ground around 2ft. After owning them for 4 years I was getting tired of moving them every time when I needed to use them. They weighted around 70lbs each. And moving them is not an easy feat. I have always had my eye on the MaxJax 2-post lift for home garages but not until recently have I been in a position to be able to get one. I had my eye on it since Dannmar produced the lift. Now Bendpak bought them out and now produce the lift. Bendpak is a major vehicle lift mfg and brought a lot of safety upgrades and redesigns to the lift to make it more like a commercial lift you would find in an automotive shop. I decided to start the process of looking into seeing if this lift was feasible for my garage.
I live in a 4-story townhouse with a 18x19 foot garage. I have just about 9ft ceilings. I bought the townhouse brand new before it was built. I was able to talk to the building foreman and saw how they were pouring the concrete. They put small rebar in the garage floor had to pour the slab 5in thick and they were using 4000 psi concrete. So, I had a lift in the back of my mind when I bought the house 6 years ago for just incase in the future. I did a bunch of homework on the lift to make sure it was feasible before buying the lift and coming up with an issue. I did not want to cut the floor and pour deeper footers. I drilled test holes in my concrete and confirmed that it was indeed right around 5 in thick. The lift requires a minimum of 4 ¼ thick and 3000 psi concrete. Once I figured out that I was good with my floor, I reached out to local PCA member Steve Wood. He was gracious enough to left me see his garage with the lift installed with a lower ceiling. He showed me his MaxJax lift with his Porsche on it and showed me the range of lift operation. After seeing it in operation, I was sold and moved forward with placing the order.
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