On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:57:21 GMT, _
wrote:

One of the projects involves both re-doing the garage and lifting a ford
4-cyl motor out of a car. There's a fellow selling an I-beam locally, 13
feet long, 8 inches deep, 4 inches wide (no web thickness specified). This
would span the garage nicely - could I rely on it to not bend if I hook up
a hoist to the centre and lift that motor? Supported on the ends only...

There are at least 3 standard wide-flange beams that fit that
description, running from 10 to 15 pounds per foot. It'd be
irresponsible to make a firm recommendation based on incomplete
information, but I think it's unlikely you'd have any problems lifting
a 4 cylinder engine with a W8x10 (the lightest of the standards) wide
flange beam spanning 13 feet as long as you use a little common sense.

--
Ned Simmons