Assembling a Proform Elliptical

After much back and forth with Groupon, I finally received an enormous box containing the parts of my very own elliptical machine!  Read my initial post about my new elliptical here!  To summarize, Groupon ran a deal for a Proform elliptical for a ridiculously cheap price.  I purchased it.  I waited two weeks, and the tracking information was never supplied, so I contacted Groupon's customer service.  Groupon's customer service told me that my order had been unilaterally cancelled by them, to which I protested heavily, but they just refunded my money.  I still protested, because I didn't want my money, I wanted the product that I purchased!  After many emails and phone calls, some of which even involved Proform directly, Groupon did the right thing and sent my elliptical.  It arrived via a special delivery truck last Friday afternoon.

Below is our story of assembling the elliptical!

Although the assembly directions showed all of the pieces in the below photo as separate pieces that needed to be put together, they came out of the box already assembled.  Three cheers!  We first had to attach the front and back stabilizing legs to the unit.  A seemingly easy task, yet it took a lot of muscle on the part of my husband to accomplish, because the screws were rather stubborn.

The next step was to attach the front pole and the base's top cover.  This step required two people, because the crucial wires had to be threaded up the front pole to be later attached to the console.  Then, with wires dangling precariously from the top, with fingers crossed that the wires did not adhere to that pesky thing called gravity and slip back down the pole, I held the front pole as my husband attached the pole to the base and locked the base's top cover to the base.

Below is another view of the front pole with the wires ready to be attached to the console.

We then started the attachment process with the pedals.  They "slid" onto a knob which attached to the wheel.  It sounds simple, but this was no easy "slide."  It was yet another step where my husband was throwing his entire body weight into pushing against pieces to make them lock into place.  I would have absolutely been unable to this on my own.

More steps completed!  The arms attached to both the front pole and the pedals.  We had to "generously" spread grease on the points of attachment so they would slide easily when used (they do squeak slightly now that the entire elliptical is assembled, so we may not have used enough, but if the squeak gets too bad I am sure we can buy grease cheaply at the Home Depot).  And, of course, screw it all together.  We also attached the console.  The elliptical runs off of 4 D batteries (which cost about $7 at our local drugstore), and are hidden under the back cover of the console.  We then attached the wires from the front pole to the console, and slid the console over the front pole and screwed it on.  It worked immediately, and we breathed a sigh of relief.

The finished product!

From start to finish, it took us about 4 hours, but this included breaks (we were tracking my sister's Ironman progress that afternoon).  The manual estimated 2.5 hours.  This was definitely a two-person project, and one of these people preferably should be able to hold up heavy objects for extended periods of time!

We have placed the elliptical in an empty space between the bed and the window and air conditioner.  When not in use, we leave it close to the window so no one accidentally bumps into it.  It easily slides, so we move it on an angle when we want to use it so we have a view of the television.