The autolift garage a body shop foreman needs in West Des Moines starts long before the columns arrive on the trailer. It starts with a site survey that catches the four things that kill an install week: shallow concrete, low trusses, a floor drain running through the anchor pattern, and a service panel that cannot carry a 30-amp 240-volt circuit. We are Auto Lift Services in Ames, Iowa, and this is the pre-install walkthrough we run for shops from Waukee out to Grimes before we ever quote a lift. We also run through the transmission-service workflow so the layout matches the actual work.
Rotary and Challenger commercial two-post lifts, in stock and installed by our Iowa crew.
The four checks that make or break a site survey
Every autolift garage site survey we run in the West Des Moines corridor covers four items. First: concrete depth and age. We want at least four inches of 3,000 PSI concrete under the column footprint, and if the slab was poured before the current owner bought the building, we take a core sample. Second: ceiling clearance. We measure to the underside of the truss chord, not the drop ceiling, and we note every duct, sprinkler, light fixture, and cable tray between the truss and the intended overhead beam. Third: the electrical panel. A 10K two-post pulls a 30-amp single-phase 240-volt circuit, and shops in older commercial buildings around Waukee sometimes need a panel upgrade before the lift can even be energized. Fourth: floor drains and slab reinforcement. A drain trench running under the anchor pattern is a full-day rework. We map the survey on graph paper and hand a copy to the foreman before we quote a build.
Reading the concrete under your feet
Concrete is the invisible half of an autolift garage. A four-inch slab poured on gravel with a proper vapor barrier will hold a 10K two-post through a lifetime of daily use. A three-inch slab poured on old fill or over a leftover drain trench will crack at the anchor edge the first time a tech puts a full-size pickup in the air. In West Des Moines, most of the buildings we work in were poured in the 1990s or later and hold up well. We still core-sample any slab where the age is uncertain. If the core comes back thin, we have three options: saw-cut and re-pour a pad under each column, epoxy-anchor with a chemical anchor system rated for the actual depth, or move the lift to a bay with better concrete. We do not install on questionable slabs. A dropped column ends careers. See our concrete requirements article for the ASTM specifications.
Transmission service on a two-post, how the work moves
A body shop foreman running transmission service on a two-post autolift garage lift plans the work around drain, drop, and swap. The tech pulls the vehicle into the bay, drops the arms under the frame rails at the manufacturer’s lift points, climbs the vehicle to chest height, and stages the drain pan under the transmission pan. From there the pan bolts come out in a clockwise pattern, the fluid drains, the filter comes off, the new filter goes on, the pan gasket gets a wipe of RTV, and the pan bolts torque to spec. For a full transmission R&R, the two-post holds the vehicle and a transmission jack takes the weight of the case. West Des Moines shops running domestic light-truck fleets do a lot of 6L80 and 10-speed pan services, and the tech’s shin room under a 10K two-post is exactly the right envelope for that work. A 12K would be overkill on capacity but the extra column height helps when the truck sits on 35-inch tires.
Electrical, air, and hydraulic runs to plan for
The autolift garage layout has to route three utilities to each bay: electric to the power unit, compressed air to the hose reel and impact stations, and a return path for hydraulic fluid drips. Electric we already covered, a dedicated 30-amp 240-volt circuit per lift, home-run to the panel and switched at the disconnect. Air we run from the compressor manifold along the wall to a hose reel above each bay. Hydraulic drips we address with an oil-absorbent pad under the power unit and a scheduled fluid change every two years. In West Des Moines shops that share a compressor with an alignment rack, we specify a minimum 15-CFM at 90 PSI for a mixed two-post and mid-rise scissor bay. Undersized compressors are the second-most-common install-day surprise, right behind concrete. We size the compressor with the foreman during the survey and note whether a second tank is needed. Planning utilities up front keeps the install to a single day.
Overhead trusses, sprinklers, and the ceiling envelope
The ceiling of a West Des Moines commercial shop is rarely as clear as the foreman remembers. Sprinkler drops, HVAC ductwork, light fixtures, and cable trays all live in the space between the truss bottom and the working head of the lift. For an autolift garage using a 10K two-post, we need eleven feet six inches clear to the underside of the truss chord, and the overhead beam of the lift has to clear that truss by at least four inches. If the shop has a fourteen-foot ceiling and a ten-foot drop for the sprinkler main, we adjust the lift centerline to keep the overhead beam under the drop, not through it. Sprinklers we do not move. Ductwork sometimes we can reroute, but that is a separate contractor and a separate line item. Lighting fixtures we relocate to run along the columns instead of over the bay, which usually improves the tech’s working light anyway. Every ceiling problem has an answer, but the answers cost real money if they surface after the columns are already on the trailer.
What we bring on install day and what we need from you
On install day, our crew shows up with the lift crated, the anchor drill, the torque wrench, the two-axis laser level, and a test vehicle if the shop cannot spare one. What we need from the shop is a clean bay, a working 240-volt outlet within twenty feet of the intended power-unit location, an empty compressor at full pressure for the air-purge cycle, and a foreman on-site to sign the final walk-through. We anchor the columns, plumb them, tension the equalization cables, bleed the hydraulic system, cycle the lift under load, and test the safety latches on both columns. From site survey to a working autolift garage bay takes about six weeks in normal shipping conditions and a single install day on the shop’s end. The foreman is running work orders the next morning. We come back at ninety days for a free re-tension of the cables and a torque check on the anchors.
The site survey is free and the install week starts there
Every autolift garage build we quote in the West Des Moines corridor starts with a free on-site survey. Our lead tech drives to the shop, walks the bay with the foreman, measures the ceiling, checks the panel, samples the concrete if needed, and hands over a written site report the same week. If the shop is ready to install, we schedule the crew and place the manufacturer order. If the shop needs concrete work, panel work, or truss modifications, we outline the sequence and refer trusted subcontractors we have worked with before. The survey costs nothing because catching problems at survey saves both sides real money at install. A survey we ran last spring for a body shop in Waukee flagged an under-strength slab and moved the lift to the neighboring bay, saving the shop from a two-week concrete redo. Call 800-674-9302 to schedule your survey. Bring the foreman and a tape measure. We will bring the rest.
Our Clients Include: