Its been a busy couple of months so I have not been able to get to the car at all. Katya’s (my daughter) birthday, then Thankgsiving, now Christmas coming up. But I’m back.

In order to do some of the things that I had planned last year I needed to purchase a car lift so I can get under a car. There are a lot of options out there, with ranges from $1,000 to $20,000. Not sure that I am ready to spend 20k on a lift that I’ll use for several times, but also installing a 2 post or a 4 post lift is difficult and requires special cement floor in the garage, etc.

Ideally I would like a 4 post lift at some point, that way I can store 2 cars one (probably the BMW) on top of the other. But that’s not a now problem. For now I need something small, relatively cheap and functional. I have been looking at things like the QuickJack.

There are 2 options for the 5000lb version and the 7000lb one. They work based on hydraulics and there is a locking bar that keeps the lifts up. A hydraulically balanced cylinder system makes sure that the car is lifting evenly on both sides. Pretty neat and for under $2,000 its a great deal at Costco.

So some time ago (August or Sept) I ordered this lift from Costco and the delivery took a couple of months, and then it took me a couple of months to get to it so now its December and I am finally unboxing it.

Below you can see it “installed” after I finished the unboxing and “installation”:

I have been doing research on how to actually lift the car with it, just to make sure I am considering everything and that I am being as safe as possible. I am going to have to go under there while the car is in the air… To that effect I found a really nice post about lifting specifically BMW Z3s, and the lifting points/how to do it. This is the original post from Pelican Parts: https://www.pelicanparts.com/BMW/techarticles/BMW-Z3/35-BASICS-Jacking_Your_Vehicle/35-BASICS-Jacking_Your_Vehicle.htm

Looking at how people are lifting their Z3s it looks pretty easy and nice, just take a look at this post on bimmerforums:

Ok so where do you actually place the rubber blocks to lift it? Is it on the pinchwelds? Seems kind of sketchy to me. Is there another way? Well the places where you place the blocks on to be able to lift the car are shown below:

That’s all for today. Hopefully I can come back soon to continue.