Make sure your garage is wide enough to fit your new hoist. Survey your garage or workshop area for such items as shelving or work benches that will prevent the hoist from being installed or properly operated.

You must be able to fit the hoist within your garage and the depth of your garage will determine which hoist is most suitable. Once again, think about any potential obstructions that may prevent the hoist from being properly installed and operated.

Your hoist has specific requirements to secure safely to a concrete base. Make sure your concrete is thick enough to support your hoist, minimum thickness is 100mm. Also, ensure your concrete is in good condition with no major cracks. For example, concrete anchors must be at least 150mm from the edge of the concrete or any seam and the hoist cannot be anchored to the concrete if there are any cracks within 900mm of the base plate.

You need to make sure your vehicle will fit onto the hoist and that there is adequate clearance when the vehicle is in the hoisted position. Also, make sure the hoisting capacity of the hoist is properly matched up with your heaviest vehicle.

You need to make sure there is enough clearance in your garage. Remember to take into account remote panel doors when open.

You need to make sure your vehicle will fit onto the hoist.

Choosing the proper hoist is determined by what you are planning to do with it. Are you primarily going to use the hoist for vehicle storage and occasional repair work? Will you frequently be removing the wheels from the vehicle?

You will need to consider your power requirements, 240V or 3 Phase. Please discuss with an electrician.
All Tufflift hoists are available with either a 240V or 3 Phase power unit at no extra cost and you will need an electrician to wire the unit.

All Tufflift hoists are supplied with Tufflift Hydraulic 32, additional oil can be purchased from Tufflift in 6 litre containers.

Our installer’s use a 20 mm drill bit to drill the holes for the dyna bolts.

19 mm dyna bolts 140 mm long, additional bolts can be purchased from Tufflift.

Asymmetric or symmetric refers to the column configuration or the arm configuration of a car hoist. A two-post car hoist is designed to fit a range of car widths between them, but some with symmetrical arms (all four arms are of equal length) make it difficult to open a driver’s door to gain access to the vehicle, as the post obstructs it from opening wide when the vehicle is raised, therefore the width between the posts need to be made wider.

By making shorter arms for the front and longer arms for the back (asymmetric arm configuration), this allows a vehicle to be positioned between the columns with approximately one third of the car in front of the column and two thirds behind the column. To properly load any vehicle onto an asymmetric hoist, all the arms with lift pads need to be pointing toward the rear of the vehicle.

The shorter arms would then be pulled forward and the lift pads positioned on the appropriate forward lifting points. Similar with the rear arms positioned at the lifting points near the rear of the vehicle. This configuration would allow the driver’s front door to open wider clearing the columns giving better access to the inside of the vehicle if required.

There are two kinds of two-post hoists – 1) with cables and hoses running along the floor with a protective cover or plate, this is known as a base plate model and 2) one with cables and hoses running across the top of the hoist leaving the floor clear for equipment to move unimpeded under the vehicle, known as a clear floor model. The weight of a vehicle must be evenly distributed on each of the four arms of a two-post hoist whether it be a symmetric or asymmetric configuration. A base plate hoist can have short front arms and long rear arms, but this does not make the base plate lift asymmetric, as the front arm pads could not be moved to face the rear of the vehicle due to a raised metal base plate on the floor between the two columns. This initial positioning of the arms is only possible on an overhead style two-post hoist which is preferred for lifting heavier vehicles.

Symmetric arms on a two-post hoist can be extended or retracted so that all four arms are the same length, allowing a vehicle to be raised in the middle of the hoist which is preferred for longer vehicles.

Symmetric columns are installed so that the middle of the columns are positioned directly across from each other allowing a wider space to drive through.