Yeah Tom, I like a forklift too. I usually use my forklift or one of my neighbors. We're always sharing lawnmowers, forklifts and hedge trimmers.

I like the I beam and trolley--setup sideways to car bay--you can roll car forward or back and trolley from side to side for alignment---also works in shorter work spaces, lowering is easier and more safe than the hydraulic cherry pickers--also doesn't have clearance issues for legs under neath and/or from the front end

We have and use cherry pickers for most every engine change at the shop, where room is not an issue. Here at my house, I have a single garage and driveway. Plus, the boom on the cherry picker is not long enough, to reach the engine from the front !

At the shop, we come in from the side. Driving the cobra out to the sprint car shop, which is in the country and all gravel roads, will never happen. In the past, I have unloaded everything in the enclosed sprint car trailer, put the cobra in, put everything back in for the sprint racing, and all over again when the engine work was done with the cobra. Not doing that anymore, it's time consuming and a BIG hassle.

I don't think there's any need to get extreme of figuring out the engineering, with the 600-700 lb. load the engine will put on the ceiling joists. Especially with the side wall top.bottom plate's and headers on the the outside wall and the apposing inside wall going downstairs in the house. The span is short. I don't believe that the attic area in a home can not handle the weight. How many people put hundreds if not thousands of weight of junk up there with no issues. As long as the weight of a timber is long enough to spread the weigh, it should be fine.

If I were pulling many engines out year around, I would build a better working system, but since this is once in a great while, it shouldn't be a problem. The trolley is great, but not for a small home garage.

Hot Rodders and car guys have been doing this in their home garage's for eon's.

Bob, how long is your boom ?

I agree that the chain hoist is better for control, just straight up and not trying to move the cherry picker around. That's a better piece of mind for me.

I also like the 1 Ton Telescoping Gantry Crane mentioned before, but unless you build it yourself out of scrap, it's expensive.
$600 + the trolley. Plus, I wouldn't use it enough and you have to store it somewhere.

The sprint car shop was hit by a tornado and the structural integrity is a concern. He's been fighting the insurance company for a year. :mad:

We leave everything we can inside the sprint trailer,..... outside of the shop.

In the area AT HOME THAT i MIGHT (do) pull an occassional engine, I doubled up the joists on about 8 of them so I actually hace 8 that are 2x8 doubled and I have a piece of trolley track that then sets crossways of them dropping the chain hoist down thru the access hole to the attic!!!!! gives me 3 to 4 ft of lengthwise movement and I can move the track 3 foot side to side to line up over vehicle c/l

Another option is a jib crane.
http://www.contrxcranes.com/

Having a truss yard for 34 years I have seen many people use trusses to hoist loads. If you copy the truss and take the drawing to a truss yard they can run in computor and tell you how much trusses can hold. They can put point loads on bottom cord and tell how the truss stresses. Take lenght of bottom cord, height at center from bottom of bottom cord to top of top cord. Draw size of gang nails on your picture so they can tell if gang nails are big enought. We oversize plates and underspan truss designs so ours are ok most of time, most truss yards do same.

Yer killin' me...:LOL:

I agree. What is being referred to as rafters in a previous entry, is probably ceiling joists or collar ties. The intent of those items is keep the walls tied together and not (necessarily) to support the concentrated download of an engine suspended from a chain. Your local building department may be willing to share the information from their span tables but saving a hundred dollars for a used cherry picker may not be worth the gamble.

Tom- I would use a crane but, it's too large for my single stall garage and too big to store. It would work great at our sprint car shop though.


Update-

I called a engineer and explained my plans, and he said it would be just fine.

I used a hole saw to drill out a 6" hole in the ceiling and used a plastic ceiling light fixture to make it some what attractive. I bought a 1.5" x 10" solid steel bar stock, used heavy duty clamps, large hook, 1/2" stainless steel braided cable that I made two loops with, and used two heavy duty clamps.

Then I bought a 2-ton chain hoist on sale and a engine load leveler.

I'm very happy to say it worked worked perfectly ! And looks great.

When i finally finish the garage paint, I'll take some photo's.

It's easy to take the hoist off the hook and store away. :D

Correct.

There are alot of reasons not to place anything in your garage roof trusses for lifting a heavy load. You would use a beam (an I-beam, or a wide flange), but roof trusses in general are designed to support roof loads primarily, not point loads suspended under the trusses.

Rent an engine hoist is my best advice.

E

I did not see this the first time.

This post is spot on!

E

The boom type will not work in my situation.
I do not know how well your house is constructed and your location but, here in Nebraska, we get very heavy loads of snow and for tornado's (like tonight, we're in the basement) and are built strong. I had no problem with the chain hoist or load !

In "most" cases, home and garage roof framing is done with a type of Warren truss. Although a stong support section, it has weaknesses. the top cord is by design "in compression" (forces pushing together), and the bottom cord is "in tension" (stretching). By design, a truss is designed for loading (forces down) on the top.

In certain circumstances the panel points can be used, but unless the truss was designed to support bottom cord loads you are much better off not using it. The reason is because "in general" trusses fail, they do not deflect. you would not get any notice before the truss would fail.

I am sure there are trusses that can carry a load like this (In automotive applications we use pre-determined panel points for much greater loads), but "in general" home and garage trusses are never designed to support an engine hoist, and it could be very dangerous.

E

PS You have a computer in the basement? :eek: :)

You could just throw a chain around the 4x4