On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:57:36 -0500, Tim Wescott wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:57:21 +0000, _ 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 engineering tables for that sort of thing. I don't know where
the right place to look is, but that's all been reduced to "look it up
and run a couple of numbers".

Machinery's Handbook.

Hope This Helps!
Rich