History of the Brenner Lift and Stand

I started out using a $25 come-along on a rafter in my garage and welded up some car stands. This worked fine. It took a while to ratchet the car up but the main problem was I had a very small shop and every time I needed to move the car around I had to ratchet it down again. So I thought about it and made up a stand with wheels. It was very similar to what I make now, only I started out with smaller casters. I found that with small size caster (even though they were cheap. the car and stand would not roll easily over cracks and debris. After some experimentation I found that 6" casters worked really well and there were some I could afford with the load rating I wanted. I wanted the stand to break down into a small package and be adjustable for different size cars and to accommodate just a frame or tub if needed. Height is really important too. Don't go over 24". Being a racer, I also wanted it esthetically pleasing.
I then lusted for a proper lift.

I saw a lot of aluminum A-frames, but they mostly always stayed in the trailer. They were "portable" but took a long time to assemble and screw together. They also had a big footprint and seemed to be always in the way. My first lift only weighed 80 lbs. didn't have casters, and folded up into one piece with pip pins. What I found was that weight didn't really matter once the stand was up if it was on casters. What was more important was compactness when broken down, speed of assembly and disassembly and a small footprint when assembled. I decided that aluminum was not the way to go as I can make a steel frame more compact and not have to gusset everything. I also didn't want to have to screw things together. There are a lot of cheap winches out there that I think would work really well on a lift but they are not rated for lifting and I can't rely on supply so I can't really sell my lifts with them. You could always get one and put it on an existing lift. Same with the casters. There are many cheap and perfectly good ones sold at Harbor Freight and Enco. My caster plates are drilled on a 3" square pattern. I put brakes on every wheel, but that might not be necessary if you want to save $.