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Motorcycle Lift Table

B

BUDDINGGEEZER

Guest
Harbour Freight has a 1000lb, 29 inch lift, hydralic table on sale for $299+ tax. I couldn't buy the metal and build my own for this. Table weighs 300 lbs, so bring a friend to unload.

I put a Vulcan 750 on it and it's rock solid.

Ralph Sims
 
Oh that's for sure. I was looking for a table and the consensus from a prior post is either this one or the Handy Lift. The Handy Lift is a lot more expensive but would hold up better under professional use. I'm going to have them deliver via freight for about $70. No sense putting my back and a friend's or relative's back at risk.

I'm guessing in a few years that I'll have to put in new hydraulics but it should be good for the price.

Regards,


Randy Kasal
 
I've got one!

From HFTools:)...Its a fine unit and lifts all my bikes with ease, including my 800 lb. gorilla, KLT1200! No issues. I know professionals using these too. Some rally vendors have bought these lifts for road trips and use them a lot at west coast rallies I've been to. The latest is a hydraulic/air driven lift(same design) for a tad more at HFTools. Mine is the pump by leg unit for home use and I am very happy at 55, lifting my bikes to my level:). No more knees on cement! Randy13233:wave
 
Now you tell me

I'm just putting the finishing touches on a lift I built with wood and galvinized pipe. Cost was a little less than half, but I might be willing to trade the money I for the time and energy invested. I'll post some pictures when it is finished.
 
motorcycle lift

i got mine at local tool store for $300 and works great.only thing i change on it is wheel wise.
 
I too have a Harbour Freight lift and like it very much. Can't beat the price. It's pretty spooky mounting the bike on it by myself though. Usually I have someone spot me while I roll it on. Anyone here figured out how to roll a big bike on safely by yourself?
 
make sure yur leveling screws are down so when you drive bike on the ramp the whole thing dont slide forward.i got the same lift and used with difrent bikes with no problem.


martin.vernon hills,il
------------------------------
84 CZ 350
87 bmw K75
03 Yamaha R1
05 Kawasaki Z750s
 
The Wheel Vise...

The wheel vise on the $299 HF stand sucks. Handy will NOT sell you a vise unless you already bought their stand. However, for about $24, including shipping, you can have essentially the same vise that comes on the Handy stand.

Harbor Frieght's more expensive stand comes with a better quality vise than the cheapo stand. If you visit HFS' website, you can download the manual for the more expensive stand, call the 800 number and order a "replacement" vise kit (#1, IIRC) from the expen$ive stand. You will need to drill a bunch of holes in your cheap stand to install it. I did, and it is WELL worth the time and money, imho.

Furthermore, if you bought the foot-pump version and later want to "upgrade" to the pneumatic-hydraulic version, the required part-set is listed for that, too.
 
My wife came into my shop one day earlier this year and saw me lying on the floor to work on the bike. First thing she said was "You should get something to pick it up so you don't have to lie on the floor". If my knees allowed, I'd have jumped up and kissed her! I did thank her profusely.
I got the hydraulic only HF lift and love it. Made a wheel clamp from a couple pieces of oak and carriage bolts. Works great. Best thing since pockets on a shirt.
A nearby bike shop owner has one with the air assist and says it's just something else to go wrong(seals).
 
I bought one off eBay, from a dealer who was local. It does not have a base, just a big double X under it. It is air operated, and when raising, one seet of the lower legs of the x have rollers that allow movement. It is much steadier than the ones that are a parallelogram with a base. I fiddled with both types with a big cruiser on them.
 
Harbor Freight/Yellow Freight = bad

Well, after ordering the lift table from Harbor Freight something like three weeks ago, Yellow Freight (the shipper) called yesterday to deliver on Monday. They had lost it in Kansas City at the warehouse for nearly three days.

The dispatcher said they'd be here Monday between noon and 1:15 pm. I said great. She said, "This weighs 359 pounds."

"I know."

"You'll have to have some way to unload it from the truck" she said.

To make a long story short, I paid $70 for shipping from CA to IA. Yellow Freight would deliver it to my door but not unlead it. What the heck did I pay for, then?

I called Harbor and they said I paid for shipping only from "Point A to Point B."

I said that yes, and "Point B" is my address.

Yellow Freight would then deliever it with a lift gate for an additional $70!

And Harbor Freight wouldn't refund my shipping when I refused the lift. After I raised a big stink, they said they would. Some would have went quietly and paid the extra $70 that no one told me about but I don't reward stupidity.

Harbor Freight pointed out that on their web site there is the notice about possible lift gate charges but no one told me and besides, I ordered from a live person on the phone - not on their web site. And I certainly hadn't searched their web site in one obscure little location for literally very fine print in a pop-up window.

I'm going to just pay a local mover $100 to pick a lift up at a local store from a competitor. Harbor Freight will never receive another dime from me.

The irony is I could have had a lift three weeks ago.
 
You do not need a lift gate. Hell, I unloaded mine from my pickup-truck by myself. You do not need to LIFT 359 pounds, you only need to LOWER it. If you put an old mattress or a couple of old pallets, or some old trash cans or... (I hope you get the picture by now) on the ground behind the semi-trailer, you can push the crate out of the back of the truck until it is ALMOST at the tipping point. Then, get out and, standing to the side, pull it until it starts tipping. Lower it to the ground, or drop it onto the mattress (or equiv.). You never need to lift the entire crate off of the ground. From where you have it, on or near the ground, remove what you can of the crate. If the thing is upside down you can turn it over all by yourself. Most of the weight stays on the ground. Again, you do not have to lift the whole thing off the ground. Once you get it assembled, it is on wheels. Roll it into place.

Screw them and their $70. If you feel you must, spend the money on pizza and beer and hire some neighbors to help you. Build goodwill and peace with your neighbors instead of paying Yellow Dog Freight.

Better yet, pick it up at the Yellow Freight Terminal. THEY will load it into your (or a friend's) pickup truck. Like I said earlier, I unloaded it from my pickup all by myself, no problem. The bed of a pickup is considerably closer to the ground than the floor of a semi-trailer.

(Note, I am not a teamster and so therefore if you hurt yourself for following advice you got offa the interweb, your chances of suing me and winning anything are as diminished as your capacity. YMMV)
 
That has worked for me. As long as the slant distance from the axle to the ground is greater than the distance from the top of the upper triple clamp to the bottom of the lower one, it will work. A jack under the center will add clearance. Some of the stand sellers sell a nice solid scissors jack make for this purpose.
Putting the bike on the center stand, rocking it toward one side and putting a chunk of 2x4 under one leg and then repeating for the other leg will raise the bike another inch or so. Repeat as necessary to get fork-removal clearance. This AIN'T rocket science.
 
The dispatcher said they'd be here Monday between noon and 1:15 pm. I said great. She said, "This weighs 359 pounds."

"I know."

"You'll have to have some way to unload it from the truck" she said.

When I lived in Rock Rapids, gravity still worked. Wouldn't they just drag and dump, or let you do it? I usually give them a cold 12-pack for their cooperation.

I still get stuff dumped in the street in front of my house. Often I have to either get help or disassemble it at the curb to take it to the back.
 
You do not need a lift gate. Hell, I unloaded mine from my pickup-truck by myself. You do not need to LIFT 359 pounds, you only need to LOWER it. If you put an old mattress or a couple of old pallets, or some old trash cans or... (I hope you get the picture by now) on the ground behind the semi-trailer, you can push the crate out of the back of the truck until it is ALMOST at the tipping point. Then, get out and, standing to the side, pull it until it starts tipping. Lower it to the ground, or drop it onto the mattress (or equiv.). You never need to lift the entire crate off of the ground. From where you have it, on or near the ground, remove what you can of the crate. If the thing is upside down you can turn it over all by yourself. Most of the weight stays on the ground. Again, you do not have to lift the whole thing off the ground. Once you get it assembled, it is on wheels. Roll it into place.

Screw them and their $70. If you feel you must, spend the money on pizza and beer and hire some neighbors to help you. Build goodwill and peace with your neighbors instead of paying Yellow Dog Freight.

Better yet, pick it up at the Yellow Freight Terminal. THEY will load it into your (or a friend's) pickup truck. Like I said earlier, I unloaded it from my pickup all by myself, no problem. The bed of a pickup is considerably closer to the ground than the floor of a semi-trailer.

(Note, I am not a teamster and so therefore if you hurt yourself for following advice you got offa the interweb, your chances of suing me and winning anything are as diminished as your capacity. YMMV)


Hey thank for the input. It's the point of the thing. I can lift or at least lower 369 pounds (one guy that I put into the wall in Judo weighed about that but I got him off balance) but they didn't tell me up front that they wouldn't unload the lift.

It's not the fee or the weight. It's that a deal's a deal. I just don't deal with people or companies like that even if it's more costly to me. My friends or brother would help out but there's this thing called liability, and I have stuff to take if someone got hurt loading/unloading this for me not to mention feeling horrible is someone got hurt.

Better to pay the professionals. It's less grief especially if something goes wrong.
 
When I lived in Rock Rapids, gravity still worked. Wouldn't they just drag and dump, or let you do it? I usually give them a cold 12-pack for their cooperation.

I still get stuff dumped in the street in front of my house. Often I have to either get help or disassemble it at the curb to take it to the back.


It's not the weight or the fee, it's the whole principle of the thing. It didn't help at all that Yellow Freight's customer diservice rep was snotty when they had lost it for two days or Harbor Freight's trying to insist that I was the one at fault for not looking on their website for an obscure notice about lift gates.

F Yellow and Harbor.
 
I get engines delivered all the time. Crated usually. I use a wheel dolly. The ones you put under car tires to rolls a car around. Once out of the truck it's easy to get on the dolly and push/pull wherever you want.
 
The wheel vise on the $299 HF stand sucks. Handy will NOT sell you a vise unless you already bought their stand. However, for about $24, including shipping, you can have essentially the same vise that comes on the Handy stand.

Harbor Frieght's more expensive stand comes with a better quality vise than the cheapo stand. If you visit HFS' website, you can download the manual for the more expensive stand, call the 800 number and order a "replacement" vise kit (#1, IIRC) from the expen$ive stand. You will need to drill a bunch of holes in your cheap stand to install it. I did, and it is WELL worth the time and money, imho.

Furthermore, if you bought the foot-pump version and later want to "upgrade" to the pneumatic-hydraulic version, the required part-set is listed for that, too.

Like you, I got the HF lift (on sale for $250 :clap) but hated the wheel vise. I thought about ordering the one from the more expensive HF lift like you did, but found these folks who sold me one for $40. Their lifts look almost identical to the HF models, and they said they were importing them before HF started carrying their version. Seemed like nice folks.

http://www.weliftmotorcycles.com/MotorcycleClamp.htm
 

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Holy Thread Resurrection, Batman!

I'm just putting the finishing touches on a lift I built with wood and galvinized pipe. Cost was a little less than half, but I might be willing to trade the money I for the time and energy invested. I'll post some pictures when it is finished.
I just got the plans for the wood-and-pipe motorcycle lift. I think I'm going to build one pretty much per the plans, then build another one out of steel tubes later this fall. In either case, the deck is going to be marine-grade plywood. I like working on top of wood rather than steel or concrete. A couple of coats of polyurethane will prevent stains and so forth.

Anyone know where I can get an 18" BMW roundel sticker?
 
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