This comes up every now and then, and I still haven't seen a good solution,
so here is the situation.
Every now and then, the graveyard maintenance shift (read: few people) needs
to mount a 7' tall or 600 lb piece of equipment we've all come to know and
love in a rack. While pad jacks are available to move them around the
datacenter floor, equipped with friendly hydraulics and all, there is a
piece missing.
Is there a common-sense piece of equipment available that 1 person can
operate that will support a very bulky, rackmountable piece of equipment so
the same, single person can mount/unmount it near the top of a rack?
I have seen plenty of solutions for this on warehouse floors, but most
datacenters don't have the ceiling height for track-crane. I don't know how
people handle the 15' relay racks either now that I am sharing my gap in
knowledge.
Your advice, suggestions and even jokes are appreciated, but remember, I'm
armed. 
Deepak
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 15:32:02 -0400
From: Deepak Jain <deepak@ai.net>
[ snip ]
Is there a common-sense piece of equipment available that 1 person can
operate that will support a very bulky, rackmountable piece of equipment
so the same, single person can mount/unmount it near the top of a rack?
Automobile engine hoist with some sort of reinforced L-shaped shelf to
bolt where the back of the block would be?
Eddy
Genie lift makes a number of approrpiate products:
http://www.genielift.com/
Something like this http://www.genielift.com/ml-series/ml-1-2.html
from behind works quite well. They make a counterweighted version
I can't find on the web site better for the front. With forks you
can even side it into a rack.
With a flat platform welding on a heavy duity drawer slide will
allow you to slide smaller gear in and out of a rack.
[ On Sunday, June 24, 2001 at 19:36:29 (-0400), Leo Bicknell wrote: ]
Subject: Re: Operational Content, I think...
Something like this http://www.genielift.com/ml-series/ml-1-2.html
from behind works quite well. They make a counterweighted version
I can't find on the web site better for the front. With forks you
can even side it into a rack.
Yeah, the counterweighted version would be almost ideal, at least if the
forks are adjustable and will fit betwen 19" rails. There's a good
picture of it on their "online brochure" page for the "ml series" link
you gave, and from there a link to a larger picture.
With a flat platform welding on a heavy duity drawer slide will
allow you to slide smaller gear in and out of a rack.
If you've got, or can make, a wee bit of space between cabinets
(eg. with cabinets on wheels) then the straddle model would work well
too....
Mobile Lift is another manufacturer of similar lifts / stackers, some
with much higher lifting capacities.
If you're putting stuff onto a shelf or existing rails (like you REALLY
should be!) there are various companies making scissor-lift mobile
carts/tables/dollies, though any adjustable lift should work in such a
situation. Best value is probably a Mobile Lift 500-lb winch lift with
20x20" platform and 54" lift height at ~$775[cdn] from Avenue Inustrial
Supply. Just mount the rails in the cabinet (or shelf on the rack) and
mount the mating slides on the box, plop the box on the lift, wheel it
into place, winch up to line up the rails (or shelf), and slide it into
its new home.
All of this issue of course clearly identifies why it's cricital to pay
for the extra floor space and have suitable amounts of clearance on both
sides of a rack or cabinet! 
A couple of car jacks and some 2 by 4's.
Chris
Sheesh.
And people think I'm insane for wrestling two 12008's into racks. By
myself. With my bad arm (broken titanium rod inside broken arm for 1 1/2
years, email for copies of a really pretty x-ray!) and bad leg (partially
fused crushed ankle from auto accident).
I think the day after, I was praying to $deity for one of these things the
next time I have to move heavy stuff like that.
-j
[ On Monday, June 25, 2001 at 09:44:04 (-0700), Jonathan Disher wrote: ]
Subject: Re: Operational Content, I think...
And people think I'm insane for wrestling two 12008's into racks. By
myself. With my bad arm (broken titanium rod inside broken arm for 1 1/2
years, email for copies of a really pretty x-ray!) and bad leg (partially
fused crushed ankle from auto accident).
I think the day after, I was praying to $deity for one of these things the
next time I have to move heavy stuff like that.
Yikes!
The best(worst) I ever managed was to put a Sun 3/280 (I admit with the
PS and disks removed) into the top of a 6' cabinet by myself. (And it
was a stupid old DEC cabinet that needed those silly little clip-on rail
nuts, which of course meant every time I lifted the thing into place and
bumped one of them it slid off to the wrong spot. I HATE clip-on rail
nuts, round, square, or otherwise (though at least the square ones can't
be slid out of place). Why can't everyone just use pre-tapped EIA rails?!?!?!?)
So, (I just gotta ask), how'd the titanium rod break?