After years of fumbling with jack stands etc, and having neither the space nor the height for a two post or four post hoist, I finally found and bought a used scissor lift made by Flat Jak.
When either of my Alfas are on it there is ample room to work one end of the car, not so much on the other. With a little planning there should be lots of room to drop a transaxle or pull an engine, but not both in the same session. Carm, I'll send you a couple of pictures of my Spider on this lift, and I hope that helps demonstrate what I'm talking about. In general, the advantages of this lift are that it is "portable" because it can easily be moved around by one person, and it is stored under a car without otherwise intruding on the space in my garage. There are some not-so wonderful aspects of it. I can back my Alfas over it, but would need to lay down planks beside the lift to drive over it the other way and clear the oil pans. Even though it can be rolled around on a concrete floor with no difficulty, it weighs about 800 pounds, so you need some equipment to pick it up and get it on a truck if you're thinking of loaning it out. Finally it operates on an air-powered hydraulic pump, so if you don't already have a compressor, you'll need one with a lift like this. I haven't been able to find Flat Jak anywhere, so I suspect they're not in business now. The individual that sold me this unit was replacing it with a more modern scissor lift, but it wasn't cheap at about $2,000. I think there are some two post hoists you can by for little more than that, if you have the room. George Beston Spider Jr. 105.91 Alfetta 116.33 -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]
