I have the Canadian version of the Harbor freight lift. i did purchase a hockey stick style wheel chock for it. we have worked mostly on touring bikes and there has never been an issue with it holding the weight. the good part is the removable panel at the back so you can drop the rear wheel when you want to change tires. there is not a similar piece at the front, so we just use the typical scissor jack on the floor for the front wheels. i am very happy with it over the 5-6 years that i have owned it and it was worth every bit of $349
Put me down for a Handy electric hydraulic, mine has a door for the rear tire and the front tips down. If you have the space; once you use a good table lift, you'll immediately see how much better it is than ANY jack
I've had a HF lift for about 4 years now. I don't use it much; mainly for oil changes in which I drain and not suck the oil out ( I like to look at the magnetic drain plug now & then to make sure nothing is accumulating). But it does get higher than the jack which is nice sometimes. But since I gotta reposition half my garage to set it up, I tend to use the jack most of the time. My jack is very handy though; it's also from HF and is 7 1/2 years old (no problems with either unit ever). I don't even strap it down on the jack and I run the engine, remove wheel/tires (I put another jack under the opposite tire when I remove one) and disassemble/reassemble quite a bit on it. I have made some mods to the lift to make it more user friendly and I will hopefully get some pics uploaded for all to see. These mods were time consuming just trying to come up with simple, effective ideas and keep spending costs down as much as possible. The plus side of that is that the lift was always useable even when these mods were not yet done.Here's what I've done:
1. Drilled 2 holes in the front bottom cross member with brass hat bushings. Drilled corresponding holes in the floor to drop in long bolts (either 7/16 or 1/2" diameter; don't recall) to keep the lift from moving out from under me when taking the bike on & off.
2. Side extensions - I looked a long time to find the right ramps to repurpose. Had to be wide (these are 14'" each) and aluminum because of weight. But they don't have to support much weight; just my feet as I take the bike up & down. I don't like having only 24" for both me and a 900+ pound bike. If that thing starts going over, ain't no stopping it with the floor more than 7" down. And with the stock HF ramp which is too short, I couldn't really see the chock to aim at. Even taping an orange snow pole to aim at still wasn't the greatest to see. I don't recall the sizes and lengths right off of pipes, clamps, etc but I test-fitted at the store what size pipe would fit into what size square tube along with proper U-bolt. I did some minor manufacturing on a couple of things too. They make a good work platform for tools too.
3. Replaced the stock wheel chock with a Condor (which I was fortunate enough to already have on hand)
4. Replaced the stock ramps with longer & much heavier ones (found a local fabricator who had made some of these) which I put side by side for a wider surface to go up on. To keep them in place I put a put a screw at the front of each ramp to act as an alignment pin and drilled holes in the lift to drop them in. To keep the back ends together I found a small u-bolt in the garage, took the nuts off and I slip it over the adjoining edges of the ramps. I take the ramps off to raise the lift. These ramps give me such a better view & angle to drive the bike up on.
The pics show a 2017 Limited and I had a 2010 Ultra Classic prior. I clean it a lot and do most of my own maintenance so I'm always using the jack. I've considered getting a different lift and jack both because they are getting some age and I know they are not built as beefy as some others. Yes I keep an eye on them but if there is metal fatigue going that may hard to detect and I have it sitting on there for an extended period and it fails, well, you can imagine that it ain't gonna be pretty. Just thinking.
Second the J&S. I use it to work on the bike, clean the bike and storage during the winter. Wheels around the garage no problem, solid. Takes about 90 seconds to jack it all the way up and push it to the corner of the garage. https://jsjacks.com/ has the video where they jack up the bike and sit on the front fender etc. 5% discount for Vets too . . . .
The J&S is great, and I have long called it the best motorcycle tool I have. Lately, I have been pondering a good lift, though!
Kendon has been making that lift for a while. I looked at it years ago but (as some as said) it just looked too flimsy. I have one of their three rail trailers and it serves it purpose well. For a lift I wanted a higher weight capacity rating just to feel good about. In addition, I wanted an electric/hydraulic lift with dual drop outs, so I got the K&L MC655R with a 2,000# rating and 48" lift height. Best mod I have done for my garage by far.
Like Clasic10 I have a HF Lift. I added some very similar modifications as he did. I used a set of HF Ramps with 3 pieces of Electrical Conduit bolted to each ramp. They Slide into corresponding "U" Bolts that I added to the Lift itself. These do not need to be to terribly robust. Their purpose is for my feet when loading or unloading the bike. The front wheel chock is also a HF item. I also added a pair of rubber feet to the two screw stops. They're supposed to keep the Ramp from sliding away from you when you load the bike. But without the rubber stops (which work perfectly) the stock metal feet just slide on a smooth cement floor. Lastly, I painted two circles on the floor so that I can position the lift so that when fully raised neither the Harley nor my Goldwing windshields hit anything on the ceiling of my garage.
Bluehighways I didn't really think 4 years ago when I bought it that anything other than some sort of securing it to the floor would keep it from slip-sliding away. I'm glad to know that rubber feet will do it. For now I'll keep using what I got (it also puts me in the same spot every time like you said) but if I ever move or seriously rearrange the garage, I'll try it. Always cool to see how others have improvised and ideas that they've come up with.
Back before I drilled the holes, one of the first times I used it, my old bike was on it and all the way up with the trunk lid open (I was reinstalling the tour pak) and the garage door was closed because it was middle of Winter. At just the right moment the wife came home and of course hit her garage door opener as she approached. I went to grab our little dog from getting run over and all of a sudden the bike jerked and it didn't take long to realize that the garage door hit the lid and destroyed the tour pak. Fortunately that's all it damaged. But a testament to the jack too because the bike was not strapped down and it stayed solid on it. So yeah - wasn't long after that that I put the bolts & holes in lol.
09-27-2019, 08:11 AM
