Well a friend of mine has a old Gas station and his lift just got stuck in the up position. It is a air drivin hydralic unit and the air is getting to the cylinder, not a leak. A dealer said they could come and shoot a higher psi of air into it to get the lift down. Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be. cory
Try putting some weight on it if its empty. We used to do that to get them down in the service station after we raised them to clean the floors. They always seemed to either be extremely slow coming down or not come down at all without weight on them.
good chance either column jammed or check ball gummed. make sure all pressure relieved at control lever then attempt to rotate clockwise and counterclockwise to limits to see if column jam will free up. If that does not work, brace lift platform so it can only drop a few inches at a time, pull the pipe plug from extreme top of column (usually in recess area of lift head, i.e. it would be under driveshaft of vehicle on lift) use long rod to probe bottom of column innards, BE CAREFUL!, WEAR EYE PROTECTION! you may end up using a come-a-long or so to pull unit down. when done, remove all fluid and replace with a biodegradeable fluid. Good Luck! call me if I can be of anymore assistance. Calvin 904-708-8296
Its been over 30 years but the best I recall. In cold weather the water that is traped in the unit will freeze. I would aim a blower heater at the shaft and as it heated the lift would lower its self down. Bobby..
My lift is a Wayne from the 50-s and it had been under a bad roof,with water leaking in on the shop floor for years..... I unscrewed the PLUG atop the lift ,as suggested above and it expelled the excess[water and rust?]and went right down and has worked perfectly ever since...I think it was from AROUND the large piston/cylinder itself-in its receptcle- not in the oil reservoir... Anyone know -WHERE- to add fluid, and -WHAT TYPE-fluid they use?
I love the HAMB!! I have one of those lifts, no problems yet, but if I ever do I know where to come for answers!
Take a pole jack or two and support the lift while in the up postion. Like others have said, unscrew that large (1 1/8? ) bolt on the top of the head. You'll probably find that the oil looks like choco milk. I used to take a suction tool and suck out about 2/3 quarts of oil/water. Then raise the lift up with the air again. Take out the pole jacks and the lift should come down. Old gas stations have air lines that run through the floors. Makes it hard to keep water out of the lines to the lifts.
we used to have the same problem at my old job take that 11/8 bolt out and use the suction tool on it like was said before be careful though that some nasty crap with the water mixed in god I'm glad those days are over.
Don't know where on it(never messed with that type of lift), but fluid should just be Hydraulic oil (basically 10wt).....available at Napa in 5 gallon pales. If it was completely drained, ATF would work as well.
Thanks ,But are most of these type lifts More a Hydraulic than Pnuematic lifting mechanism [or a combination of both]?
OK I gotta say it. Some of those sneaky bastard had a lock in the front that flipped over like a small cam went you went to full up. A safety of sorts. Check around the big fat cylinder for that tpye of lock or on the little anti rotation pole if it has one. And if not you have the old stinky bad pussy smell stuff to get out of the cylinder. As stated by other poor experienced bastards open up set to go down and walk away. Man that rancid oil and water smell just never goes away from your mind. Other than that I know nothing about those things you speak of. And even getting someone to jump up and down on the top of it with release set to open will get a good many to go down. Like I said never used one.
We can't really say these are junk- as mine is still working well after almost 60 years and 15 of them being total neglect!
Air over hydraulic. Search on the net for Wayne lifts and I am trying to remember name of the other big one. There used to be some manuals and service data out on Al Gores deal he started, check there.
thanks guys, i went to go see my razorbacks get beat at the buzzer by georgia. the lift has a bug on it right now so thats the delima, i was trying to save clem some face buy not saying that but wheres the fun in that. so the safety lock is down but it wont lift to disengage it. we were going to jack it but then wanted to be carful once the safety was disengaged, if for some reason it didnt have presure that would be alot of weight. ill have him look at this in the morning. this will give him a good start. do you think we should try to fork lift the bug off first or will the revomal of the plug work with the bug on? thanks all. cory
Are you saying it won't go UP to get it off the safety? Those above ideas, I believe are for one stuck up. I don't think it would be a good idea to take that plug out with a car on it. Craig
i don't think you can get the plug out with a car on it. but if it won't go up enough to release the saftey there's another problem. the plug will only get it down by releasing the pressure not help it go up. i also belive the should be a pipe plug in the floor around the post for filling. http://www.autoliftrepair.com/sftrouble/sftrouble.html
yes it is in the up position, 5 feet off the ground with the safety out and it wont go up the inch neccesary to get the safety off. cory
you guys just reminded me of one of the most dangerous (and funny) situations I have seen-don't pull the plug. I ran a shop that had 6 of these in the ground. they all leaked, and would periodiacally need to be topped off. a green tech, after filling 3 decided he would make it easy on himself and raise the lift to make the pouring from before mentioned 5 gallon pail easier. i'm laughing too hard to type. so he raised the lift, and before I could yell "no"...he zapped the fill nut out of the top with an impact. life went down pretty quick. on top of his steel toes. problem was, he was standing right over the hole. so the fluid went straight out of it in a tube shape-right into his mouth and face. were talking about a high speed "stinky pussy" facial enema that he couldn't get away from cause his feet were stuck. he made this noise "glub glorb gllaaah glub puuuuh yuuhhhlg glub" We had to lift the lift off his feet to free the poor bastard. he wasn't right for about 3 days, and he had to shave his head to get the stink out of his hair. don't pull the plug if there is a car on it, it'll skoosh you. use a pole jack to lift it the neccecary inch, get it down and top it off in the "all the way down" position. unless you have a tech that needs a hydraulic fluid facial enema.
Sounds like it could be low on fluid. Let off the pressure so all the weight is resting on the safety and then top off the tank. It is probably in the floor near the lift.
are you sure that it is Air over hydraulic ? If it is a full hydraulic lift it will have two levers one for the oil flow and the other to allow air to pressure the oil tank. If the flow valve is in the closed position on the oil tank the lift will not come down ? I have seen them stick in the up postion and most of the time a good rock from front to back will free up any sticking that might occur from the top seal ring. Or as someone mentioned earlier it could be a broken air line under ground.
wow! you guys are great... i'm the owner of the lift in question. cory said he would post the hamb with our concerns and i can't believe how many responses there has been. the car is now off the lift. i jacked the lift up, got it off safety and lowered it down to the floor. since it would not go back up, after work today i will checkout the fluid level. thanks to all those with suggestions. i will definately post the outcome. hopefully it won't involve hot high pressure pussy-smellin' juice facials or busted toes. molater
Man, make sure the wonderful EPA folks don't come sniffin around if it is leakin', been there and it wasn't fun ($$$$$$$$$). When we open a new shop that has in ground lifts, we pull em out, cap em off, install two-post lifts, and pretend the old lifts were never there.
yeah, i know about those epa folks. they came to check where the old under ground gas tanks used to live. took soil samples and water samples from the drainage ditch nearby and then drove off in their official white van, never to be heard from again. weird... when i bought the old sinclair station the original lift was bad, dry and totally rusted. but i really wanted the original style center post lift and i found that brand new ones are available with a fiberglass case to prevent leaks. after just 1 year the clay soil and a constantly moist watertable around the new lift took it's toll on the air lines that feed the lift and i had to dig it up again. this time the air lines were put inside pvc and sealed up. thinking problem solved for my lifetime... but noooooooo. i appreciate the suggestion to replace with 2 post lifts and if this current fix doesn't pan out i will probably do so. sure like to old style centerpost though... tough to give up. thanks, clem
I worked at a garage back in the mid 60's that had a leaking in floor lift. They had been dumping drain oil we got from oil changes in it for years and it still worked. It worked for another 10 years until they demolished the building it was in.
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