I would take the time to find a reliable used Pit Bull. They are all over the Face book market place and Craigs List.

 

I had looked extensively for a Pit Bull or one of the other jacks with a good reputation, but found none that were (a) available, (b) reasonably close by (because lifts cost a LOT to ship when shipped by an individual from a residential address to another individual at a residential address), and (c) would handle a bike with low ground clearance.

Jim G

 

My deal for the used Big Blue fell through. Turns out that the seller is located in a VERY rural location 120 km from the nearest town, which is itself small, where the shipping companies don't normally go, and at best would want several hundred dollars to pick it up, in at least TWO boxes because of the weight! And the seller did not keep the shipping boxes it came in either, and was struggling figuring out how to disassemble and pack an 85 lb lift for undamaged transport.

I asked him how the heck HE ever got it delivered to that location in the first place. He said when he was shopping, the Big Blue distributor's website in Canada was offering "free freight" as an incentive, so he took online advantage of that offer! I'll bet the distributor was shocked at the shipping bill when it came in, based on what the seller and I have found when we went looking for estimates.

So now the seller has an apparently pretty nice lift that he needs to sell to someone who is very close by to his location, and given his remoteness, that looks pretty unlikely.

Jim G

 

Could be an excuse for a vacation road trip...

 

Cool thinking but:

- One of our boys is already arranging this year's vacation - a gift from him celebration of our 50th wedding anniversary, in Italy.

- The lift seller's place is 1650 km away, each way, through mountains AND the littlest squiggly roads found on Google! And, we have only ONE household vehicle, and the motorcycle can't carry the lift!

Jim G

 

Well I just discovered the maybe best model of hydraulic jack type lifts: the PITTSBURGH AUTOMOTIVE 1500 lb. Aluminum ATV / Motorcycle Lift which is available for $230 US at Harbor Freight:

https://www.harborfreight.com/1500-l...ift-63397.html

Here's WHY this speciifc model looks so good:

It lowers down to 3.6", which will fit under my Breakout's 3.75" ground clearance at the lefthand frame tube when the bike is on its sidestand.
It lifts to 17", which is very high for a jack type lift. It can actually lift higher using a provided accessory "topper", but then it would not fit under my Breakout.
It's aluminum versus steel, so weighas only about 48 lb. (57 lb in its shipping box).
Its rated to lift 1500 lb like the steel ones.
It lowers at a controllable rate by twisting the lift handle counterclockwise a bit.
Aluminum doesn't rust.

And here are the kickers:

Only $230 US which is $315 Canadian

I started reading the customer reviews. I kept going until I got tired of reading them - I read 85 reviews - and STILL could not find ANY complaints! None! In fact, the HF summary of customer reeviews says that 1429 users reviewed it, and the average score was just a bit short of 5 stars out of 5!! This beats the crap out of the HD / OTC offering.

One big problem: Harbor Freight does not exist in Canada, and it also will not ship to Canada. In facty, HF won't even ship this item in The u.S. You apparently have to buy it at one of the HF stores. I would need to find a way to have someone buy it for me in The U.S. and then ship to me. The 57 lb weight and the 3 foot length by 1.5 foot width would not be a shipping problem with most carriers.

I could maybe have my younger son, who lives in California buy one and ship to me, but the freight cost from California would be much higher than from say Montana. Montana is directly below Alberta, so I need to see if there is an HF store somewhere in Montana, not too far from the Canada-US border. I am only about 60 miles north of the border. So, IF there is a store somewhere not too far, I could maybe drive down and pick one up.

Need to do some more research . . .

Jim G

 

Looks like there is a Harbor Freight store in Great Falls, Montana, about 3 hours each way from my home. Hmmm . . .

Jim G

 

Not trying to dissuade you, but this lift is only moderately better than a Craftsman jack, and those are pretty horrible for anything heavier than a sportster.

 

I'm very willing to use Harbor Freight equipment, and have a good bit of it myself.
But not that jack.
There's a few things I just don't really like about it.

1. It's basically a tripod, which is not nearly as stable on the ground as a standard square type is.

2. The front lower lift legs, or "link staff" as the manual calls them, are not stable or strong. I am very suspicious of them buckling (or simply breaking if they're cast aluminum), and I have serious doubts about how stable the bike is up in the air on them.

3. Study carefully that locking mechanism. If I understand it correctly, it does not passively work, requiring to to manually set it, both on and off. This can get ugly should you have the bike malpositioned and need to quickly stabilize the load by dropping it onto the locks.

4. Study carefully the handle hydraulic control. Make sure you can easily fine control it for gentle descent in all positions. It looks typical, which means upright you tend to have poor control because you're over-throwing the u-joint, which could have you dropping the bike from high quite fast and violently.

None the less, take a trip, check out both types of motorcycle jacks HF carries, and look at the big table, for the heck of it. Though you won't be able to carry that table in a car, mind you.

 

(1) I see what you mean by the "tripod" comment, but the jack frame only narrows down AFTER it gets out from under the load bearing platform. The load bearing area is fully supported. The frame narrows only under the mount point for the lifting lever. This narrowed shape actually enables closer easier user access to the side of the motorcycle, and presents less of a tripping hazard.

(2) The front legs may LOOK dainty, but remember what I said about reading the first 85 user reviews. Those reviews incldued many reviews from users lifting full dressers and Goldwings, and doing it for a veyr long time, without incident.

(3) The user manual is available on the HF webpage for the product. I read it completely twice. The locking mechanism IS fully passive. If you look in the manual you will see at least one diagram that shows the location and shape of the "toothed ramp" locks. As the lift is raised, the locking "frame" clicks into each step on the ramp.

(4) If I understand your comment correctly, I agree that using the lifting handle at a high sharp angle would greatly reduce control of the release valve, BUT anyone mechanically minded (an attribute needed to work on a motorcycle!) should understand that lifting that handle to a high position just before attempting to LOWER the lift is totally unnecessary and frankly foolish.Most people would lift the bike to the height they want, leaving the handle in a low HORIZONTAL position, so that it is not in the way while they are working on the bike. Raising it after getting to the desired height is tOTALLY unnecessary and unwise! Or, if the user wants to end up with the handle upright so that he does not trip over it if it is left in a near-horizontal position, he merely needs to stop lifting a tiny bit before maximum lift. Stopping just abit short of max hieght ensures that when he does wan to LOWER the lift, he merely lifts that small bit more, which lowers the handle, and then he release the lock and rotates the handle incrementally to slowly lower the lift.

Again, I draw your attention to the reviews. in almost 1,300 reviews, the score is almost a full 5, and in the first 85 reviews that I actually read fully, NO ONE complains about much of anything with this lift. No reports of fast descent, no reports of hydraulic cylinder wear or failure, no breakages, no leakdown of the hydraulic cylinder over extended time periods, and no bikes falling off the lift. This says something a LOT better than the reviews for ANY other hydraulic jack lift I have found anywhere on line. The only lift of any type with a cleaner record is the Big Blue, for which no failure has apparently EVER been reported. The only other lift not reporting problems is the TMG, BUT that is only because I have actually been able to find only ONE review on the TMG, presumably because it is a new product without a lot of sales yet (The TMG customer service guy I have spoken with can't even yet answer basic questions about the lift, so had to write my quesitons down and send them on to the factory).

My biggest gripes with this Pittsburgh lift are that:

-the lifting platform is only about 12.5 inches square, which requires closer attention to positioning it before lifting. Mind you, the Big Blue lift is even narrower in the cross-bike dimesnion at 12 inches, but at least the Big Blue can be adjusted to an almost 2 FOOT width along the front-to-rear axis of the bike. The TMG has the largest most forgiving platform at about 16.5 inches square.

- The overall size of the frame base is not as large as that of the Big Blue or the TMG. The TMG has the largest frame base of any lift (36" x 36" ! ) other than of course a table lift.

By the way, I agree that a table lift won't fit into a car, but our family vehicle is a pickup truck. But for reasons described in the first post within this thread, I don't want a table lift at all, as my most frequent usage requires both wheels to be on the bike and in the air, and I don't want the lift consuming garage space when not being actually used.

Jim G