When it is time to reinspect an older two-post, the first thing that fails inspection is usually rotary lift decals. Faded capacity plates, missing operator instructions, illegible safety warnings — they all show up on the ALI inspection form and they all have to be fixed before the lift passes. Auto Lift Services stocks rotary lift decals for every current-production Rotary lift and can source most legacy sets. We ship out of Ames, Iowa, and support shops across the Midwest with same-day dispatch on decal orders. It is one of the fastest, cheapest fixes we handle.
Capacity plates, warnings, and full safety-decal packs for current and legacy Rotary lifts.
Why rotary lift decals matter more than you would think
It is easy to dismiss decals as cosmetic, but they are not. On a commercial lift, the capacity plate, operator instructions, and hydraulic release warning are legally required safety information, and an ALI-certified inspector will fail the lift if they are missing or unreadable. In Iowa, shops that carry any kind of general liability policy have language in the policy about equipment being maintained “to manufacturer specification” — and manufacturer specification includes the decals.
More concretely, decals prevent operator mistakes. A tech who has not run your specific lift model in a while relies on the release-procedure decal to remember the sequence. A helper looking at the capacity plate learns whether they can lift the truck in the bay or not. Faded stickers cause incidents. That is not a hypothetical — it is the reason ALI writes the requirement into its inspection standard. When someone loses a finger, the sticker gets blamed second, right after the tech.
The ALI inspection sticker and annual compliance
The ALI inspection sticker is the tag your ALI-certified inspector applies after your annual lift inspection. It is dated, it identifies the inspector, and it certifies that the lift passed the current safety standard. That sticker is separate from the manufacturer decals — you cannot buy an ALI sticker from us, you earn it from an inspector — but the manufacturer decals underneath it have to be legible or the inspection fails.
We do ALI-standard inspections across Iowa and the surrounding states. When we come out, we bring a stack of common rotary lift decals so we can replace the faded ones on the spot and pass the lift on the same visit. That saves you a second trip and gets your inspection sticker current the same day. Book at /articles/two-post-lift-safety-inspection/ or by phone. It is a much smoother path than scheduling three separate visits.
Capacity plate and model tag replacements
The capacity plate is the most important single decal on your lift. It carries the model number, serial number, rated capacity, and the manufacturer’s contact information. When it is missing or unreadable, parts ordering becomes a guessing game and safety inspections fail immediately. We can order replacement capacity plates from Rotary if you have the original serial number recorded elsewhere — in your original install paperwork, on a purchase invoice, or on our service history file if we have worked on the lift before.
If you have no record of the serial, we can sometimes recover it from paint fill in the column, from a hidden stamp near the base plate, or from the Rotary warranty database. It is worth the effort. A lift without a legible capacity plate is legally a lift without a rated capacity, and no one should be using it that way. Shops in Des Moines, Ankeny, and Cedar Rapids call us about this monthly.
Warning and instruction decals — hydraulic release, safety latch, and more
Beyond the capacity plate, the standard set of rotary lift decals covers a set of operator-safety topics: hydraulic release procedure, safety latch operation, pinch-point warnings, arm restraint instructions, and column-mounted general safety information. Each Rotary lift model has a specific decal set specified in its owner’s manual. Missing decals fail inspection; wrong-model decals also fail inspection.
The most commonly-replaced individual decals are the hydraulic release warning and the safety latch instruction. Both are located on the columns at the operator’s eye level and both take the most UV exposure over time. We keep the current sets for Rotary SPOA9, Rotary SPOA10, SPO12, SPO12N, and SPO-series four-posts on the shelf in Ames. Legacy sets we can usually source with a few days lead time. Send us the model and serial.
Ordering rotary lift decals for older or used lifts
Used lift buyers are the biggest audience for rotary lift decals. When a shop buys a used Rotary two-post — from an auction, from a closing shop, from another shop upgrading equipment — the decals are almost always destroyed. Grease, chemical exposure, UV, and time all take their toll. A fresh decal set is one of the cheapest ways to bring a used lift back to inspection-ready status.
We regularly ship decal packs to shops in Waterloo, Sioux City, Dubuque, and Council Bluffs who have picked up used Rotary lifts and need to get them inspected before putting them in service. The pack is inexpensive, ships flat, and applies with a squeegee in about twenty minutes per lift. It is the highest-ROI purchase you will make on a used-lift restoration. Browse the decal inventory at store.autoliftserv.com or call us with your model and serial.
Where the decals go on a two-post versus a four-post
Decal placement follows the owner’s manual for each lift, but the general rule is: capacity plate on the powerside column at eye level, operator instructions immediately adjacent, safety warnings at the release control, arm restraint instructions on each column near the arm pivots. On a four-post, the capacity plate sits on the crossbeam or the front column, and there are additional warnings at the ramp end and near the rolling jack rails.
The current Rotary decal sets come with a placement diagram in the owner’s manual. If you do not have the manual, we can send you the placement sheet along with the decal pack. Precise placement matters for inspection — an inspector expects to find each decal in its manual-specified location, and misplaced decals can flag as missing. Take the extra ten minutes to put them exactly where the diagram shows.
Bundling decals with a full inspection
The smartest way to buy rotary lift decals is to buy them as part of an annual inspection. When our tech arrives to do the ALI-standard inspection, they identify every missing or illegible decal, replace them from stock in the truck, and issue the inspection sticker on the same visit. That way you are not making three trips — inspection, decal order, decal install — you are making one.
We do lift inspections and decal replacement across Iowa: Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Ames, Ankeny, Waterloo, Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Davenport, and Dubuque. Call 800-674-9302 to schedule, email founder@autoliftserv.com, or order decal packs by model at store.autoliftserv.com. For the broader parts landscape, see /articles/rotary-lift-parts/ and /articles/rotary-lift-arms/.
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