Easy ideas for getting lift to go down

[uplandbird]

Howdy- I have a 6600lb floating lift at my local marina in my slip. During the winter the lift is stored in the UP (floating) position but my boat is in heated storage. Every spring I go to put that lift down for the first time of the year so I can launch and put the boat on it, but because there is no weight on it, it is the largest PITA in the world to get it down. Ive had buddies and I stand on the dang thing for hours. Thats the only way Ive got it to work. Anybody have any ideas? Ive considered some kind of suction, like hooking up the air intake of my shopvac but somewhat concerned its would ingest some lake water and short out. Thanks in advance to any ideas!

[Mainely Wake]

Unless you have some weird shopvac you should be able to suck water up with it and not short it out. I know that doesn't answer your question but I thought I would throw that out there. Usually they recommend removing the filter before sucking up water.

[88 PS190]

Why not just run a hose up into the intakes and push water into it? Or add a big air valve and "burp" it.

[jpwhit]

What brand of lift? I have 2 hydro hoist lifts and they do take longer to go down w/o a boat but I'm talking maybe 10 minutes instead of 1 minute when the weight of the boat it on the lift. Both of my hydro hoist lifts have a 2nd lever you pull to speed up the rate that air escapes from the floats to speed up how fast the lift drops.

[wallnut21]

Happens to me too. Get something to lift the hoses up enough to drain the water out of the outlet hose on base unit. Its air/water locked. You’ll hear air coming out once it’s cleared.

[pridnjoy]

Floating lift here too. Exact same scenario.

Easy fix- open the valve hours earlier and you’re good to go.