I have a drive on four poster lift.
I can't move the rails wide enough to pull a motor, and that is fine.

I have been thinking about building a harness that goes over the lift and using that to lift the car from above without the motor....so lift the car off the motor using straps looped over the lift.

Any engineers want to chime in one that?
It would create two point loads on the lift, but it would only be lifting the chassis, no motor.

Another benefit for me is I could then set the chassis on a table to roll to the paint shop.

I know I can do all this on the floor with jacks, but the up, down, up, down of pulling the motor gets old and with the new motor I am putting in, I want to devise a simple way to pull it out frequently as I tune it up....cause there will be no room with the 8 cylinders to do much of anything to the valves except smile at them.

Rich

Rich,
This is how I removed my first 914 engine. Are you planning on harnessing to the top of the 4 posts or to the rafters of the garage? I have an A-frame hoist that me and my dad built with an electric wench on a roller carrier. I would think that you could bolt an I beam straddled across the rear posts and front post and achieve similar results.

However, I don't feel that this would be better than modification of the current lift for engine removal.

Thomas

I think it would be no problem since you would be loading the lift essentially as designed (point load on each side just like tires of the vehicle in the normal mode).

If you are lifting the whole car from a single beam, I would put it at one end of the beams near the post, not in the middle of the span. Not sure what your lift is rated for but most are more than double the weight of a 914 so it shouldn't be an issue if the load is in the right place.

Just out of curiosity, how do you plan to attach the harness to avoid damaging the body?

FWIW, having done it both ways, I think lifting the car off the motor is much easier than lowering the motor from the car.

Beam on tp or ramps, beam under car, straps in between.

I can use hockey pucks on top the the beam to isolate where the beam touches the car.

I just picked up my lawn tractor to do the blade the same way, while the 914 was on the lift.....too lazy to move it.

Rich