Liftall Replacement

When I dropped Mr. Haney's Liftall unit to get at the transmission work he needed I knew it needed work, too. I planned to leave it out until I got around to it, tucked away neatly on a piece of cardboard. When Goldie spent the repair budget on her new hips I decided to grease it up and put it back in, both to get it off the floor and to fill the hole in Mr. Haney's belly. He had been a little embarrassed by the piece of Plexiglas I had patched him with.

The Liftall is tricky to get in and out. The manual calls for two special handles and two and a half strong backs. I had to make do with less. Taking it out I tried putting long bolts in the bottom where the handles where supposed to go and tying ropes to them around the clutch housing. Then I unscrewed the bolts holding the unit up and slacked off the rope to lower it in a controlled manner. It stayed in control until it cleared the housing and then it flipped upside-down and dropped on the ground.

What I wound up doing was using the box in which I mix concrete or mortar and two comealongs tied to a ceiling rafter. I set the Liftall upright on the box with a piece of 1x4 under one side to make it stand up and lifted - one side a little, then the other. As it got higher I could move the unit around as if it was sitting on a table to get it lined up just right, then put the four bolts back in.