Huh, that's totally different from mine. How does it work, is it moving the pulley with the hydraulic cylinder or something?
On mine, the cylinder pulls on an assembly with the four cable ends in it:
Huh, that's totally different from mine. How does it work, is it moving the pulley with the hydraulic cylinder or something?
On mine, the cylinder pulls on an assembly with the four cable ends in it:
In reply to Cotton :
Read that and already talked to Bendpak about that. It was for the the last bridge jack, the rj45. Bendpak ended up incorporating those changes in all of them.
Unfortunately they didn't incorporate them into the new rbj4500 and they can't be done to the new jack.
was told they had to change the design to make it ALI certified, that's why it sits higher now.
i told Bendpak I could care less about the ALI certification and would happily trade my new rbj4500 for an older rj45 that sits lower.
In reply to docwyte :
That’s a shame. A lot of the cars I’ll be using on my lift are pretty low, so that would be a real pain.
In reply to Cotton :
It's gonna be a pain having to pull the car onto a set of 2x12's to get it high enough to slide the jack underneath it. I can back the car onto the lift, next step is to see if I have enough clearance from the back to slide the bridge jack as far forward as I need to be able to lif the front of the car.
This is ridiculous. I still can't believe that they lowered the stack height of the old RJ45 in response to complaints, only to raise the stack height of the new RBJ4500!
docwyte said:This is ridiculous. I still can't believe that they lowered the stack height of the old RJ45 in response to complaints, only to raise the stack height of the new RBJ4500!
FWIW, I don't think they lowered the standard RJ-45s as much as that guy on Ferrarichat managed. I checked mine, they say RJ-45 on them, and they're 3.5" above the runways, not 2.5.
Several people on garage journal have chimed in on my thread there as well as a local friend and they all claim a bit over 2" in stack height.
If you have an older RJ45 its possible it was built before Bendpak started shipping them with the lower height. In that case, call Bendpak and they'll send you the necessary parts to lower your bridge jack.
I bought mine in 2016.
Incompetence. It’s rampant these days.
if they won’t address the bridge jack and you still want to keep it, why not just put the 2 x 12’s up there permanently? If the ceiling height isn’t an issue, the Cayenne shouldn’t care. You can always angle the edges down to make them ramps. Should not have to. I agree. But it is a pretty elegant solution when all is said and done
In reply to A 401 CJ :
Ceiling height isn't an issue, I have plenty of space even with the Cayenne on it. With the GX on it I need to be a little careful but still not an issue.
I do want to keep the bridge jack, it makes life a lot easier when I have to do wheels off service. I'm hoping BendPak has an older RJ45 sitting around and send it to me.
Push comes to shove I'll do what you suggest, which is just leaving the 2x12's on the lift decks all the time. Just sucks I even have to do something like that.
Right now my focus is on getting this lift operational and safe to use. It's a useless, expensive hunk of metal right now.
Ok, talked with Bendpak Friday afternoon. They're sending my installer a new runway/cables. Plan is to have the installer put in the new runway/cables June 1st and then look over the rest of the lift to make sure nothing else is broken.
Hopefully this fixes the issue and I can have an operational lift again...
But are they going to fix the crappy welds or just put new cables in the slot and crank the crap out of the bolt to bend the plate back together? I think I'd want to get the fix in writing with insurance that if it fails they'll pay.
They're sending me an entire new runway/lift deck. My current runway isn't being reused at all. I'm not comfortable with the welds on that bracket or the fact that it got bent. Metal gets work hardened being bent back and forth and becomes brittle, kinda like bending a paper clip back and forth.
So when the new runway gets put in you can bet I'll be underneath it inspecting all the welds. I can't believe it's not machine welded and that they don't have a QC process for inspecting the hand welds. Or if they do, it let mine through...
So new runway is supposed to be getting installed this Friday. They're also going to bolt the lift posts down to my garage floor.
Bendpak is also supposed to be sending me a new bridge jack center lift pad adapter kit, as the one they sent me originally won't slide onto the bridge jack.
Imagine my surprise when I got an email from them last Friday saying they were closing the case on that since they hadn't heard from me! It was too late to call them at that point, but I forwarded the email onto the tech I've been talking to there with a WTF! as I've definitely been in contact with them about this!
Stay tuned, hopefully all this works out and I have an operational and safe lift this Friday. If I don't, the explosion will be seen from outer space...
How did it go?
Runway didn't show up in time. So it got rescheduled to get installed tomorrow, runway was supposed to be here this past Monday. I called the installer yesterday to see if they had the runway, they don't. So I tracked it, supposedly it arrived in the Denver (just outside Denver actually) Depot on the morning of June 5th. But hadn't been delivered yet. Hmmm, that's not right, there's no reason for it to sit at the Depot for 1.5 days when the install shop is all of 20 minutes away.
So I then called the shipping depot directly and they said that my package wasn't on the trailer! So despite the tracking number showing that it was there, it actually wasn't there at all, it was lost! They think it's still in California.
That illicited much gnashing of my teeth and a very exasperated call to Bendpak, telling them they have to track down my runway and call me immediately when they figure out where the hell it is! Still haven't heard from them about that btw.
I then emailed the VP as well as the Customer Service manager at Bendpak, letting them know how displeased I am about this and its time to start talking about how they're going to financially compensate me for this Keystone Kops performance of theirs, plus sending me *another* runway with expedited shipping.
I don't care if the VP needs put it on a trailer and drive it out to me himself, I want another runway and I want it now. Plus a bunch of cash back at this point for dealing with all of this crap. I've literally used this lift once. Then it immediately broke, in a way that I'm lucky to have escaped injury. Now, after more than 6 weeks, I still have a useless hunk of metal sitting in my garage, that I've paid dearly for.
Oh yeah and a pissed off wife. Great!
Funny, a Bend-Pak *was* at the top of my list for when I get a 4-poster - sometime in the next decade I hop!
hope this somehow works out.
This is how I envision having my own residential lift installed would go. Sorry.
So I checked the tracking again this morning and it showed that it was out for delivery. Oh, really? So I called the Shipping Depot. Yup, truck just came in with it and its out for delivery. I literally just got off the phone with the install company, they have it at their shop. So I guess it got put on the wrong truck. Or it got left at Bendpak and then a few days later the shipping company came by and collected it with another load. Or something. Whatever.
Plan is for a crew to come out to my house tomorrow morning and get it installed and hopefully get the lift up and working again.
So, good? Still plan on pursuing BendPak for some kind of financial restitution about this...
Man what a mess. I just got around to unpacking mine. So far the welds etc look good, but I probably won’t start putting it together until Sunday
In reply to Cotton :
Good luck. The install company did tell me that I'm their only customer who's had this level of problems with a BendPak product. That I'm their only customer that BendPak has ever sent a replacement runway to.
So, fingers crossed all works out well tomorrow. I'll update it then...
I'm sorry to hear about all of your aggravation, but please continue to keep us informed as this plays out.
The only thing that has prevented me from buying a BendPak four post lift over the past few months is the fact that I've been too busy to get the garage cleared out. I thought BendPak was more or less the Gold Standard of hobbyist lifts.
I still plan to buy a lift, but I'm seriously reconsidering if I really want a BendPak or not.
I'll defintely post an update later today. The install crew is supposed to be here in 2 hours. This time I'll be running the lift up/down with my car on it before they leave to make sure all is well, that's for sure!
docwyte said:I'll defintely post an update later today. The install crew is supposed to be here in 2 hours. This time I'll be running the lift up/down with my car on it before they leave to make sure all is well, that's for sure!
Uuhhhh.. Maybe run it up and down a few times with THEIR car on it first..
Ok, so it took 5 hours, but everything is in and operational. First, take a look at this bolt. This is all that was holding the cable in place on the original runway.
So that's pretty scary. That's all that kept the cable from whipping out and causing potential injury. Bendpak modified the runway they sent me so there are now two of those bolts holding each bracket together. Special care was taken to make sure they were very tight, there should be no way for the cables to pull through.
However, the welds on the brackets on my new runway don't give me the warm fuzzy's. Lots of porosities, very bad welds.
I've sent these pictures to Bendpak. Not sure where this will lead, I may be pushing them to send me yet another runway. The lift is now bolted down to my garage floor. This isn't necessary, but I wasn't taking any chances at this point.
It does however work and my GX470 fits underneath it with 3" of clearance, which is the entire reason why I bought this lift.
I'll be touching base with Bendpak on Monday about the bad welds as well as negotiating some kind of financial settlement for all of this mess.
Ok, heard back from the VP of Bendpak today. They're going to be sending me another runway, making sure all the welds are proper and reinforced. So this makes the third runway, if you include the one that initially came with the lift when I bought it.
They're also throwing in another bridge jack for free, I think one of the older ones that has a lower stack height. So that's good. I'll need to decide if I want to run both bridge jacks or sell the newer one that sits higher. Guess I'll install both and then see.
In the interim, I did a little redneck engineering. I spent about $50 at Home Depot for two 2*12's and laid them down on the lift decks.
That gives me another 1.5" of clearance and just about 1" of clearance between the bridge jack and the lowest part of my M3, which is the front subframe brace.
Pretty ridiculous that I need to do this, but at least I can pull straight onto the lift now.
You'll need to log in to post.
