What’s On Your Lift!

I

IdleUp

New member
Just thought I would put up a post to get ideas on hanging the R25 on a lift. I thought I would just drive my tug in the lift and jack her up, but instead it took the biggest part of three days to get it to work.
Most of the time was spent on fixing mistakes the lift installer made. The turn- buckles were set right by the rub rail and without a doubt would have found their way into the hull. To rectify the problem I added four more feet of chain and moved them up – I then slid a piece of 2 ½ “ PVC over the chain, of course that also meant shorting up the wench cables (no fun).
Anyhow, I thought I might email Ranger to make them aware of a small problem – they presently have the two intakes for the engine and pumps on 33” centers which is a problem since the standard width of the cradle boards is exactly 33” as well. This could be remedied by moving there location either in or out. Luckily, I dove down to look at things before lifting it since I’m sure lifting the full weight of the rear of the boat on those two intakes could cause some structural problems. I solved the problem by installing another 2x4 on top of the boards and cut out 24” of the 2x4 to allow the intakes to miss the lifting surface.
 
Get the administrators to give you an album. I am having trouble visualzing the problem with the lift. Our lift--and most of the lifts I have seen allow you to adjust the space between the bunk boards. Yes, it is often necessary to modify the bunks. I went from a 28 foot express cruiser to the Tom Cat and did the modifications in a few hours--but there was some experimentation, since I was supporting two narrow hulls, rather than one deep V.

Not sure why there are turnbuckles and chains--is this a standard 4 post straight up lift, with two gear driven motors turning 2" pipe, with cable winders?
 
Yes, the lift is a cable winder type and the turn buckles were only 4' from the cradle right about rub rail height. Most common cradles have a fixed 33" width which is perfectly wrong for the Ranger.

Thanks
 
Here's a few images of my lift - as you can see I deleted the up-right poles and now use the chains (8ft long) with a piece of PVC over them to guide the Ranger in.

lift1.jpg



lift2.jpg
 
I have never seen this rig. We use the guide on poles, which are bolted to the cross bar of the cradle to work the boat straight onto the lift. The Tom Cat fits with only a few fractions of an inch between the aluminum tubing covered with PVC pipe--this way the hulls are centered right over the two bunks for each hull.

During low water our cradle may be on the bottom. I don't believe that chains with pvc pipe over them would work well for us.
 
I really didn't have a choice in this matter - it only around 107" between the chains (PVC) so it works pretty well keeping the boat centered on the lift. I relocated the pulleys well above the boat to keep them from the hull.
 
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