Guys, yesterday I built my Atlas 408-SL lift from Greg Smith Equipment. I had two buddies helping, we started at 10:05am and finished at 1:05pm - exactly 3 hours. We started from a disassembled lift in the back of a box truck - one of the guys had taken delivery of it at his loading dock, and unbolted it piece by piece from the shipping frame.
Assembly
1. It was not hard to build at all. It is just a bunch of really big pieces. The instructions are simple. If you are mechanically inclined at all, you can do it. I'm a stinking marketing guy, for crying out loud.
2. You really need to work out how you are going to move the big pieces around. All-in shipping weight is 1,965 lbs. There is not one piece in it you could call "light." But the heaviest pieces - the two runways, must be like 400-ish lbs each, maybe more. One of the guys had originally loaded the pieces in the box truck with a forklift - obviously makes it easy. But at my house we had to maneuver it off the back of the truck's hydraulic lift using a pallet jack. Once the pieces were generally in place, it was straightforward.
3. My first thought on opportunities to improve the instructions, I would say clarify the bolts/nuts/washers. There is one general picture of all those items laid out on a surface, but there are not individual labeled pictures of each. Some of the bolts are very close to one another, but differ slightly in length. We were often wondering exactly what hardware the schematic was referring to, because there were no close up pictures. We had two minor instances where we had to go back and remove a bolt and put the right one in place.
Performance
4. After 24 hours of running it up and down, and putting different cars on it, I just love it. It is not as slow going up as I had thought it would be. I should probably time it. EDIT: with a regular passenger car it's 93 seconds of lift time from the ground to the top lock.
Build Quality & Looks/Design
5. This thing is stout. The verticals are significantly more substantial than any of the consumer lifts I've seen - more "pillars" than "posts". You put a car/load up on it, and it's just an ingot. Will not move. I'm more than paranoid I'm going to hit my head on it somewhere - I have no doubt something so unyielding would seriously ring my bell.
6. Looks are a low priority for a functional piece of equipment, but it looks amazing. Very clean & strong. No external cables, or hydraulic lines, or lock release rods. All of that stuff is built into the cross members and the pillars.
I've got painting and other clean up yet to do, but here's a picture of the lightest cars in our fleet on it as we were testing it out.
Assembly
1. It was not hard to build at all. It is just a bunch of really big pieces. The instructions are simple. If you are mechanically inclined at all, you can do it. I'm a stinking marketing guy, for crying out loud.
2. You really need to work out how you are going to move the big pieces around. All-in shipping weight is 1,965 lbs. There is not one piece in it you could call "light." But the heaviest pieces - the two runways, must be like 400-ish lbs each, maybe more. One of the guys had originally loaded the pieces in the box truck with a forklift - obviously makes it easy. But at my house we had to maneuver it off the back of the truck's hydraulic lift using a pallet jack. Once the pieces were generally in place, it was straightforward.
3. My first thought on opportunities to improve the instructions, I would say clarify the bolts/nuts/washers. There is one general picture of all those items laid out on a surface, but there are not individual labeled pictures of each. Some of the bolts are very close to one another, but differ slightly in length. We were often wondering exactly what hardware the schematic was referring to, because there were no close up pictures. We had two minor instances where we had to go back and remove a bolt and put the right one in place.
Performance
4. After 24 hours of running it up and down, and putting different cars on it, I just love it. It is not as slow going up as I had thought it would be. I should probably time it. EDIT: with a regular passenger car it's 93 seconds of lift time from the ground to the top lock.
Build Quality & Looks/Design
5. This thing is stout. The verticals are significantly more substantial than any of the consumer lifts I've seen - more "pillars" than "posts". You put a car/load up on it, and it's just an ingot. Will not move. I'm more than paranoid I'm going to hit my head on it somewhere - I have no doubt something so unyielding would seriously ring my bell.
6. Looks are a low priority for a functional piece of equipment, but it looks amazing. Very clean & strong. No external cables, or hydraulic lines, or lock release rods. All of that stuff is built into the cross members and the pillars.
I've got painting and other clean up yet to do, but here's a picture of the lightest cars in our fleet on it as we were testing it out.
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I think my ceiling is just a bit over 10ft. I can fit my X1 under it and put either my Mustang or Cobra replica above it. I did have to raise my garage door one panel.