I'm looking at Stacker trailers and trying to get a trailer that is as short as possible but still fits my stuff. I am also trying to avoid a belly lift as I would prefer to keep the versatility of a typical platform lift. I'm curious if anyone has modified a lift to get the best of both worlds? Can you take a platform lift and cut out windows in the platform that allow the tires to drop down without going full belly lift? I'm thinking something to allow a SxS up on the lift and maintain enough height clearance that I otherwise cannot get by putting the SxS on top of the platform. I think I can get enough clearance by just dropping the tires up to just below the hubs. Obviously I need to avoid structural members of the lift. My thought was then I could have a plate that covers the windows when I want to use the platform. Thoughts? Ideas? Am I totally crazy on this?
Hey Dockmaster, no... not crazy. My stacker has an AXE Stinger lift that was designed to be configured as a wheel or belly lift... and as ROBERT L stated, it has additional rails to transform to a wheel lift. Couple notes here, my "permanent" rail, the one that houses the hydraulic ram, pulleys, cables and corner post locking linkage, is offset from center about 12 inches... that rail never moves. If you want to configure as a wheel lift, you add two rails, left and right as that permanent rail isn't offset enough for the wheel track. When configured as a belly or chassis lift, you remove one rail completely, then slide the other rail over towards the center, up against that permanent rail. What you end up with is a chassis platform that's approximately 48 inches wide, rather than the width of just one rail, which is only 24 inches wide.
Pros and cons to this... the good side is, because the car is being lifted by the lower control arms and trailing arms, when lifted, the tires don't hang down so far. That's a plus if the lifted car doesn't have a very wide track (like a 64 inch SxS) and the vehicle you're putting underneath has a wide roofline... it's likely you won't have any tire-to-roof contact/interference issues. But IMHO, that's not reason enough to opt for this 48" wide, center rail configuration... if the tire/roof interference is an issue, just put some tie-down "limit straps" on your control/trailing arms before you lift it, problem solved. The big downside of this 48 inch wide belly lift is, depending on how much room you need underneath (how high you need to send the car up on the lift), you may have crank down pretty hard on the tie-downs to compress the shocks on the lifted car, "flattening" out the control arms... I had to do just that on both my XP4/or YXZ.
Although this configuration has worked for me for some 10 years, it's not optimum. I contacted AXE/Stinger, with my lift serial number, they know exactly what I have, will sell me the necessary cables and hardware necessary to move my offset permanent rail to dead center, resulting in a 24 inch wide belly lift rail... on my list of "things to do". So, my recommendation is to go with a true, single 24 inch wide (or so) rail belly lift.
The only other downside to all of this nonsense is, if you have a steel lift, those rails are effin' heavy as a mo-fo, not very user friendly. As I recall, you were looking at aluminum stackers... IIRC, several aluminum trailer manufacturers like Intech, ATC, etc. use or make their own aluminum lifts. Even if you ended up with a steel lift like the AXE Stinger, unless you have some younger kids interested in lifting weights, I would do whatever it took to acquire a couple aluminum tire rails, take it from someone who has reconfigured their lift several times over the years, you won't regret it.
