Review of a Dannmar D7 lift

I just install a Dannmar D7 that I purchased from gesusa.com. Thank you for the excellent write up. I have a couple things to add to make it easier for others. The first was when I picked up the lift at the terminal (using a car trailer), I didn’t know which end of the lift was the end with the pump. I knew I wanted the pump to be near the shop door. Sure enough I got it backwards and I had to rotate the lift after I un-wrapped it. It would have been easier if I had loaded the lift onto the trailer the correct way as it would be installed in the shop (pump at the front of the trailer. In order to know which end was the pump end, at each end of the lift is a square end cap made with angle iron. One end will have a brace that extends about 45 degrees to the mounting hole of the pump, this end is the end that I would of liked it to be at the front of the trailer. Through the cardboard and wrap, you can determine which end has the extra brace.

Before I had gotten the D7, I had gesusa send me a copy of the instruction sheet to prepare for the installation. This helped a lot. I was able to mark the shop floor for the placement of the lift, and get to know how to build it. It save me a lot of time so I didn’t need to have my friends wait while I was figuring out the instructions. The instructions they emailed me was not the current instructions so there was a couple things different. One major difference, the emailed instruction said that I needed 60” of clearance, the instructions that came with the lift said 120”, which I needed 120” (not a big deal since I knew I needed 120” from the online write ups). Another nice thing about the older emailed instructions was that the pictures were much clearer, especially connecting the cables. So I would recommend getting the emailed instructions, even if you do not plan on reading up before the lift arrives.

I found that assembling the lift was not bad at all. I was expecting it to be a lot harder. I had an engine hoist, two 1000# moving dollies ($10 Harbor Freight), and a heavy chain to wrap around the lift. I had lifted the end of the lift that was closest to the truck with the engine hoist and put a dolly under it, I then lifted the end at the back of the trailer and pulled on the hoist so that the lift would roll out until the end of the lift with the dolly was at the edge of the trailer. I lowered the engine hoist so that end was on the dolly on the ground. I then raised the end that was still on the trailer and drove the truck so the lift cleared the trailer and lower it back onto a dolly. It wasn’t bad at all to remove it from the trailer using this method and I did it by myself, with no scares.

By myself, I unwrapped, had the four posts up, the end rails near the posts, and the ramps in the middle of the posts on the dollies ready so when I had two friends over, it took less than 3 hours to set it up and run. I could have done it with only two of us, but 3 people made it a lot easier.


I am not a strong guy with a bad knee, so I was a little worried that it was going to be too heavy to set up, but it was not.