A (very) tight fit!

[Joel]

After 16 months of ownership, I finally had to put my Noble on my garage lift to do a few jobs. I was naturally hesitant because my "compact" 2-car garage required some location compromises when the lift was installed 15 years ago. At that time, I built the lift platform explicity for my Lotus Super 7, and it still works fine for my Elan (see first pic). But the Noble is a different matter. I'd love to have a set-up more like Craig's, but at least having a lift sure beats not having one .
The good news is that the car does fit, but only just (see final pic), so it requires a lot of patience to drive on. The down side is I can only raise the lift to full height when the garage door is closed (so no car stacking). The garage ceiling is 10', and I can stand upright under the car with the lift at it's full height (OK, I'm kind of height challanged ) . So that's great for doing the oil change job. The main reason for getting the car on the lift, however, was to pull the undertray and find/fix an annoying oil leak. The good news on the leak is that it's not coming from a hose or fitting--the bad news is that it seems to be due to some porosity in one of the pan welds. Hopefully some aluminum repair/sealant will do the trick. Time will tell .

[caccobra]

Wow, Joel! That is tight. That would make me nervous. You must have had someone guiding you in?

One thing I didn't mention about my hoist is that I did have the garage door runners raised to as close as they could go to the ceiling and it is a good idea to do so (see picture below). This allows me to raise the car all the way up even if the door is open. I much prefer to work on a car on the hoist with the door open because you get good natural lighting under the car that way. It's tough to see in the pictures where your door runners are in relation to the ceiling, but if they can be raised, any garage door company to do it. I seem to recall that they charged me about $300 for all new runners and labor.

The downside is that you lose the garage door opener capability for that door unless you change over to a side mounted opener. Since I don't use that door that much, and it isn't a double door, it's no biggie for me to have to lift it myself each time.

Craig

[Joel]

What, me nervous ?
But, yes, I did have the door relocated so that it clears the Lotus cars when it's up. I didn't want to give up the opener, however, so the door ends up being pretty close to those cars, and the Noble turns out to be much taller than the Elan so there was just no way.

[RPIpower]

Wow, tight as a err...how do you get out of the car? Dukes of H style?

[Joel]

Yeah, being a gymnist would help , but at 5-8 I can manage to wiggle through a 1/3 open door when the seat is all the way back. I just have to be careful to stay away from those excess calories .