Yeah, my garage floor is just too rough and broken to support one of these, that's why my scissor lift works well in my shop. It's really supposed to be on a level smooth floor too...
I just realized I never finished this thread - sorry to leave so many people holding their collective breath! Anyway, Don wasn't too happy with his car failing so soon after doing all that work on it, and it sat in his garage for quite a while before he decided to tear it down - bottom line - blown head gasket! We took this opportunity to do a light refresh of the rest of the engine with new rings, a light hone, new rod and main bearings and a complete valve job. So, he basically has a new motor and it has been running great - last summer we drove to MMEMW in far western South Dakota and it had absolutely no issues......other than on the way home the temps were close to 100* and it was hard on all the drivers and passengers. This month we're going to do some minor maintenance - a couple of the heim joints are showing wear so we'll replace them and the shoulder bolts they ride on, other than that the car is running perfectly. We're planning a run to the north western part of Arkansas - one of our favorite Mini runs - sometime in late April and looking forward to hitting the road again......in cooler weather tho!