After seeing a ready made garage pit at the NEC 20 years ago, I have been thinking about getting a pit or two-post lift. It always seemed too complicated, too expensive, just too much…

I started following “Seaside Garage” on Youtube, who described the difference his mid-rise scissor had made. It’s not a full height lift, but cheaper and much more convenient! I started looking around and found Strongman and their apparently popular “Clifton” lift (previously “Montford”?).

Link to Seaside Garage: Seaside Garage – YouTube

It wasn’t the cheapest lift, but fitted the bill perfectly. Delivered within two days, and despite weighing 500Kg, I set it up myself. Here it is in situ (yes, I fitted the ramps to the wrong sides, handles need to be on the outside):

Still not hooked up to the “Control Tower” and it needs a commando socket installed. Will post a video of the first test run. (EDIT: Now posted below)

The red lamp on the Control Tower, and the manual does not mention this at all, is not a fault indicator as I first thought. It is a warning to everyone in the shop (and my neighbours) that the lift is lowering, and it is LOUD! So loud that I put some Duck tape over it, which brought it down to a more pleasant sound level.

I swapped the control tower connection side to be by the wall, which, TBH, I don’t think it was really designed for. The only slight issue is that the cable bracket for the stop switch has no holes to be screwed into on the other side. Double-sided tape should hold it in place.

The Chinese Google-translated manual is awful. Poor quality photos, lack of information, and written in bad English. The hydraulic line joins were not tightened from the factory, so oil leaked everywhere the first time I ran it. The dip-stick for the oil reservoir is also shiny metal, so useless. I will try to mark min and max with permanent marker on the reservoir itself.

The motor is a 3HP motor and uses 18A at cos φ .54 as seen below.