Lifted A

Tow truck's an A too
 

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State of the art equipment.:eek:

Does anyone know what the saftey feature is that prevents that type of lift from collapsing.
 
That kind of lift used to be the only one used in service stations. A check valve keeps it from moving down. A valve is opened to bypass the check valve. It can rotate. Modern lifts use the same technology except a safety catch is used in addition.
 
That lift setup looks very similar to the old Rotary inground lift that is in my shop from the early 60’s. Mine is a 2 post (front and rear axle) lift but I’m sure the system works the same. It’s a compressed air over hydraulic system. The hydraulic fluid can’t exit the cylinder and let it lower until all of the air is released from the reservoir. So theoretically, it would take a total catastrophic failure of a line or something to allow it to drop fast. Hopefully I never find out. I was shocked to see my exact lift in an issue of Hemmings holding up a ‘60 Buick at Daytona.

P.S.: That is a great photo! I need that on the wall of my office.
 

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I used one of those many years ago when working in a gas station. I had a car up on it when I went outside to take care of a customer at the gas pumps. When I went back inside the rear cylinder only had leaked down and dropped the rear of the car nearly to the floor with the front still raised. That was quite exciting but I managed to recover without any damage. Dumb luck!
 
I’ve seen that situation once when a tech released the air with the car up in the air and the unknowingly kicked the lever in the floor as they walked away. Came back to see the car practically standing on its nose. Again, no damage, but it was scary.
 
While working evenings in 1954 I had my $25, 36 Chevrolet that I still owed $12 on, on a drive on lift. It started rolling backwards, hit the stops that came up automatically and knocked them down. It rolled off the lift and out into the street. The only damage was the rear bumper fell off and the front end was lowered a little. Replaced the two sheared bolts that held the bumper on and drove it home. The font-end had hydraulic knees for suspension. It still drove just fine.
 
Spent many hours under those single post lifts in the 70's and 80's at work, far more likley to have the car fall off of the lift in the air :eek: than have the lift come down and crush you :)
 
In the late 60s, early 70s, Omar would let us kids use the lift in his mobile station. He didn’t run it, we did. Nobody ever got hurt or any problems, but looking back on the liability situation of that, it’s crazy. But that’s the way life was.
 
That lifted truck has two Model A frames, one stacked on top of the other? This is a demonstration of where the rising line of beer-fueled creativity intersects the falling curve of beer-fueled reduction of one’s ability to weld. One beer fewer or greater and this thing would not exist.
 
I was shocked to see my exact lift in an issue of Hemmings holding up a ‘60 Buick at Daytona.

P.S.: That is a great photo! I need that on the wall of my office.

What is the thing attached to the gas tank in the pic of the Buick?
Ed..
 
What is the thing attached to the gas tank in the pic of the Buick?
Ed..


That photo was from an article in Hemmings about Buick doing non-stop endurance testing runs at Daytona. Believe it or not, that contraption on the back was to hold the fuel filler so they could do “in-flight” refueling. They had another car with the fuel tank and the nozzle was sticking out in front of the hood. They would drive up behind the other and a valve would open once the nozzle engaged. It was interesting.

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/buicks-innovative-1960-torture-test-at-daytona/
 
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This is a demonstration of where the rising line of beer-fueled creativity intersects the falling curve of beer-fueled reduction of one’s ability to weld. One beer fewer or greater and this thing would not exist.


Our greatest (weirdest?) beer storming session resulted in the Shogun. A Ford Festiva with a SHO Taurus V6 in the back seat. Lots of fun. I owned the 1st one for awhile (it's now in Germany) and bought all the tooling to make more (it's now in Speedy Bills Fiberglass collection).


PS I regret selling my 24' Featherlight trailer more than selling the prototype Shogun
 

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