Automotive Two Post Lifts: A West Des Moines Hobbyist’s Pre-Purchase Checklist

If you are a weekend hobbyist in West Des Moines pouring a new slab in the pole barn and mapping out where the welder, the compressor, and the parts washer are going to live, the single most consequential decision on your list is where the automotive two post lifts will bolt down. We are Auto Lift Services, based in Ames, and roughly a third of the shoppers who call us are exactly you: rebuilding a 1970s Chevelle on nights and weekends, hunting rust on the frame of a 1980s pickup, and trying to sequence a garage build-out so the lift shows up at the right moment. This checklist is what we walk those callers through before they commit a dime.

Ceiling Height Comes First, Not Last

The number-one mistake we see West Des Moines guys make is framing the pole barn before they know which lift they want. Most symmetric automotive two post lifts want 12 feet of clear ceiling, and most asymmetric overhead models want 12 feet 6 inches at the crossbar. If you are building fresh, we tell you to shoot for 13 feet under the trusses so you have room for lights, a wall-mount reel, and the occasional lifted truck. Steel doors, ductwork, garage door tracks, and even a mezzanine railing all steal an inch or two.

If the barn is already up and the ceiling is 10 feet 6, do not force it. A baseplate-style lift can drop the overhead requirement to about 11 feet 4 by moving the cross tube down to your knees, and that trade-off is worth talking through before you settle for a lift that fights the building. Send us your rough building measurements and we will tell you exactly what fits, what you would have to duck under, and what to walk away from. Ceiling is the constraint that costs the most to fix after the fact.

Concrete Slab and Anchor Pull-Through

The second checklist item is concrete. Automotive two post lifts anchor into the slab with wedge anchors, and the pull-out load is real. Minimum for most 10K models is 4 inches of 3,000 PSI concrete cured 28 days. If you are pouring new, spec 6 inches of 4,000 PSI in the lift zone and add a bit of rebar. It costs another couple hundred dollars and it removes any worry.

If your slab is existing, we ask two questions: how thick, and are there control joints or cracks running through the lift footprint. A hobbyist we helped in Adel had a 5 inch slab with a control joint square between the columns, and we ended up rotating his lift 90 degrees to keep the anchors in solid pours. That kind of adjustment is free if we know before delivery and expensive if we find it the day the truck shows up. Grab a hammer drill and pull a small core sample, or borrow a rebar scanner from a rental yard.

Power, Air, and the Panel Walk

Most automotive two post lifts run on a 220 volt single-phase 20 amp circuit. That is one dedicated breaker, a 30-foot conductor run, and a NEMA 6-20 receptacle within reach of the power unit. For restoration work you are also going to want compressed air at both columns for impact tools, a 110 volt duplex on the near column for a work light, and ideally a low-voltage keyed control for the lift itself so a curious teenager cannot send the arms up while you are underneath.

Do this walk before drywall goes up. Standing in the empty pole barn with a can of spray chalk, mark the four column corners, the power unit spot, the panel run, and the compressor line. Take a photo. Send it to your electrician, your plumber, and to us. Sequencing this a month early means the electrician trenches conduit once and the concrete guy pours around it. Sequencing it late means chased walls, surface-mount conduit, and one more thing to look at forever.

Symmetric Versus Asymmetric for Restoration

For restoration and metal work, we push guys hard toward a symmetric or versymmetric lift. A pure asymmetric pinches the driver door forward, which is fine for a Camry oil change and miserable when you are climbing in and out of a 1969 Camaro with the doors open, welding rocker panels, or setting a new floor pan. Symmetric puts the door swing dead-center between the columns.

The trade-off is that pure symmetric wants you to spot the vehicle balanced, meaning the front axle is closer to the columns than an asymmetric setup. For a car with the drivetrain out, on jack stands halfway through a rotisserie-style build, this is fine. For a running daily driver you occasionally use for parts runs, versymmetric splits the difference. When we hear “restoration” on an intake call we default to symmetric and let the customer talk us out of it. Nine times out of ten they end up on a Rotary SPO10 or Challenger CL10 versymmetric, and both are excellent choices for the hobby garage.

Arm Style, Pad Height, and Frame Work

Restoration means you are going to pick vehicles up by unibody pinch welds one day and by frame rails the next. Long-reach three-stage arms are the standard for automotive two post lifts and cover almost everything. The upgrade that matters for restoration is the pad stack. A tall stack lets you clear rocker moldings on a lowered muscle car and get up under a Jeep body-off-frame job.

Frame cradles, truck adapters, and stackable pad extensions are all optional for a reason: they get lost in a working shop and they cost money. For a restoration hobbyist, we recommend buying the pad extension set with the lift on day one. The $180 you spend at purchase is roughly the $180 you would spend later, but you never have to wait for shipping and you never lift a car on the wrong pad because you were impatient. Also add a low-pad kit if you know you are going to drop the LS in that Nova.

Freight, Forklift, and the Install Day Plan

Automotive two post lifts show up on an LTL freight truck bolted to a pallet weighing between 1,700 and 2,300 pounds. If you have a tractor with pallet forks or a rental forklift lined up, unloading takes 15 minutes. If you do not, the driver will lift-gate it into the driveway and you and two friends will spend an afternoon working it into the shop with pipe rollers and cursing. We tell West Des Moines customers to schedule a forklift for the delivery window.

Install is a full day for two experienced people or a half day for our crew. Rotary hammer, a torque wrench that reaches the anchor spec, level, plumb bob, and a fill of AW-46 or 32 hydraulic oil. Read the manual cover to cover the night before. We are happy to install for you as a turnkey line item and we are equally happy to be a phone call away while you do it yourself. Whichever route you pick, do not schedule a first car for the same day as the anchor cure.

Budget Ranges and the Rotary Question

Hobbyist-grade automotive two post lifts land in three tiers. The imported tier, well built and honest, runs roughly the price of a decent used compact car. The mid-tier from Challenger and BendPak steps up in build quality and warranty. The Rotary tier is the American-brand professional lift with the paperwork behind it, and it costs meaningfully more.

For a West Des Moines hobbyist chasing frame rust on weekends, we do not automatically send you to Rotary. We ask how many hours the lift is going to see, whether the car matters, and whether you would rather buy once or buy twice. A daily driver plus one project car generally does great on a Challenger CL10 or an Atlas Platinum. If the project is a $60,000 restomod that you plan to keep, the Rotary is the answer. Call us at 800-674-9302 and we will spend 15 minutes on the phone before you fill out any form.