2018+ Softail Models Breakout

Which motorcycle lift?

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  #41  
Old 07-11-2024 | 12:29 PM
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I visited the British manufacturer's site that makes and sells the Big Blue. That visit provided 2 new pieces of information that the Canadian website, and the Canadian distributor himself, fail to provide:

1. The big blue lift CAN be locked, with a padlock (they don't say where nor show any photos though). The website actually suggests it as a theft deterrent when needed or wnated. Mind you, a padlock as a theft deterrent or unauthorized operation preventer is NOT at all the same as a mechanical lock engineered to hold the bike in the air.

2. The British site sugegsts that if you want more control of the bike during initial lifting or final return to the floor, you can use a wheel chock on the front wheel, to keep the bike LEVEL (not tilted) to avoid that awkward un-tilting during initial lifting and the re-tilting during final lowering.

To the above, I would add that using a chock would also prevent damage caused by forgetting to remove the J hooks for the final re-tilting step when lowering. Should you forget to remove the J hooks, you could bend or break the lift or even potentially damage the bike frame and/or sidestand when the lift tries to detach from the frame when it gets close to bottoming. Trying to bottom the screw type lift once the bike wheels are already on the ground COULD still load the suspension with the front chock in place.

Jim G
 

Last edited by JimGnitecki; 07-11-2024 at 02:07 PM.
  #42  
Old 07-11-2024 | 12:57 PM
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Happy wife, happy life.

If she says the OTC type lift, there's nothing wrong with that call.
If you want it in Harley orange, then get that color.

 
  #43  
Old 07-11-2024 | 01:53 PM
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Originally Posted by JimGnitecki
This YouTube video for the J&S Jack is certainly impressive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fim0yZYgdds

Anyone have any experience with the actual product?

Jim G
Yeah, the J&S jacks are great, unfortunately they are no longer in business. I found one on Facebook Marketplace, they popup frequently. Their only weak point was their bottle jack, but they can be purchased fairly cheaply if needed.
 
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  #44  
Old 07-11-2024 | 02:36 PM
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The Bug Blue Canadian rep responded to my question about the spacing of the 2 support beams. Obviously, the further apart the beam are, the more table the motorcycle is against tipping forward or backward, especially when a wheel is being removed or re-installed. Good news there on the Big Blue for multiple good reasons:

1. The spacing is VARIABLE, which enables a user to avoid specific places on the frame tubes, such as the sidestand mount and any weld joints on the frame tubes that stick down a bit (my Breakout has one on the RHS frame tube about 2 inches before the frame tube turns upward). This is a BIG advantage.

2. The beams are lockable (via bolts), temporarily (if you use the lift on multiple bikes) or permanently (if always one specific bike), into different locations.

3. The meximum spacing from front to rear is apparently about 2 FEET

These 3 features enable a user to find, lock, and use the specific fore-aft length that is the longest compatible with his/her frame and its protruding portions, for "maximized" stability on any specific bike.

I need to find what the HD / OTC fore to aft dimension is, as i now see the huge efefct that can have on stability AND on avoiding protrusions on the bike's frame tubes.

Incredibly, NONE of the places I have found online give that HD / OTC fore to aft beam dimension, despite its importance. A couple of people on the HD parts and accessories website and elsewhere have asked the question, but got no answers. I hope that Uncle G or someone else here can provide that measurement.

Jim G
 
  #45  
Old 07-11-2024 | 03:13 PM
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Uncle G replied very quickly, saying that the HD / OTC "does work, but it has to be carefully located around the sidestand mount. The supports are 3.25" wide, and the outside dimension is 15". That means the inside dimension between the supports is 8.5"." This is not good:

That combination of short overall 15" length coupled with only 8.5" free between the beams means a VERY little range of movement to maximize stability via idealized weight distribution, and rather limited stability attainable even then with only a 15" platform front to back.

So, that swings the choice rather hard towards the Big Blue. But my wife thinks the Big Blue is pretty overpriced, and honestly I have to agree. I costed out the Big blue for its price plus shipping from the British site, and they sell it freight incldued for a total cost in British pounds of only about $900 Canadian to just about anywhere in Europe, but they won't ship to Canada or The U.S., presumably because the Canadian distributor has an exclusive for North America, so he can charge $1339 delivered and get away with it.

Jim G
 

Last edited by JimGnitecki; 07-11-2024 at 03:45 PM.
  #46  
Old 07-11-2024 | 04:31 PM
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You're making a mountain out of a molehill Jim.

A whole lot of us use these jacks, and it's just not complicated, difficult or tricky, like you're making it out to be.
Your bike is not unique or weird when it comes to frame width, ground clearance, or balance.

These jacks slide under the bike, and you position them where you need. You slide them far enough they go under the far side frame rail, but not so far they out from being under the near rail. You do the same going fore and aft on the bike, to balance it.
It's up to you to look under the bike and make sure you're not pinching wires or such, but the chances of that are pretty durn remote. I and a lot of folk use something like paint or a colored zip tie to show where we want to position the jack, once we've figured it out.

Lift the bike up gently and slowly, just to make sure everything is ok. You'll know quickly if things are wrong, and will be able to take care of it quickly.
Do the same, in reverse, when it comes to setting the bike back down on the ground. Just gently lean it over onto the kickstand side.

Any of the jacks can, and sometimes will, foul the kickstand, depending on where you've positioned it under the bike. It's not a big deal. At worse, the kickstand only goes partially up with the bike on the jack, no big deal.

 
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  #47  
Old 07-11-2024 | 05:09 PM
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The OP over analyzes everything whether it be lifts, boots, windshields, engine guards, etc. He'll find a fault in anything that doesn't meet his specific requirements. The windshield thread was a good example. He wasn't satisfied until he made his own. I would suggest making your own lift. That's what I did. That way your lift will have all the features you desire.



 
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  #48  
Old 07-11-2024 | 05:13 PM
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I just took detailed measurements on the bottom frame rails of my 2023 Breakout 117, which appears to have different protrusions and a different sidestand mount than the earlier Softails. And the results of those measurments convince ,e that the hD / OTC lift would be very risky indeed in terms of stability, and might even possibly not work at all, even though it works with at least SOME earlier Softails.

There are a number of relevant issues on my 2023 Breakout 117:

- The front beam of the lift would need to be either forward of the sidestand mount, or rearward of it. But, forward of the sidestand will not work since the frame tube on the sidestand side is reduced in diameter in exactly that area in order to fit into the downtube that it appears to "plug" into. But the right hand side frame tube does NOT have this odd shape, so is a larger diameter. So, the front support beam cannot go in front of the sidestand mount, because the bike would have to tilt leftward to contact the left side of the beam. Since the REAR beam DOES have full diameter tubing to rest below on BOTH sides, the bike would "rock" on the lift, contacting only the front right and left rear support points solidly. So, the lift must be posiitoned with BOTH beams fully to the REAR of the sidestand mounting point.

- Even if the rocking could somehow be addressed via a custom spacer of some sort, that position of the lift would almost certainly be too far forward of the center of mass, so the bike would want to tip rearward because of the engine location, the transmission location, and that very heavy wider than standard swingarm and heavy 240mm wide tire & wheel assembly. Then, if you removed the rear wheel & tire assembly, the bike would want to fall FORward.

- The HD / OTC dual beam assembly is fixed (not variable) due to the inherent design of the lift. It cannot be made variable. But the dual beam assembly is 15 inches long front to back. If the front end of it is rearward of the sidestand mount, the rear end of it will be only partially on the left and right frame tubes, because the frame tubes both turn UPWARD at about 1 to 1.5 inches BEFORE the rear of the beam assembly! That is NOT good. In addition, there is a weld joint in the righthand frame tube that stick down immediately in front of that only spot that the rear beam can go, so even without the sidestand issue, this weld would be an issue working against moving the lift more forward to try to improve weight distribution on the lift and contact area with the rear beam.

- The trouble with that one doable position described above is that it may cause the bike to want to tip FORWARD because the entire engine and part of the transmission are forward of the rear beam in that lift position.

All together, I can now understand why everyone warns that the bike has to be positioned just right for this lift to work, even with the older Softails. With the 2023 Breakout with the new frame, the new sidstand, and the wide and heavy swingarm, wheel, and tire, it might be even harder, or not possible, to balance the bike stably on the lift. And even if possible, it might be just too finicky a process to go through each time I want to wash the bike or work on it.

So, I cannot rationalize going with the HD / OTC lift.

But while I am pissed about the inflated Big Blue price the Canadian distributor has put on it, my wife is really livid about it, and her current attitude is "Hell no". And there are no used ones available and freight without an existing freight contract would be ridiculous from and to residential addresses.

So unless she softens on that, I'm not getting the Big Blue either. And, I am having to try to explain to her that when you have a bike with only 4.5 inches of ground clearance, on a 66.7 inch wheelbase, and an overall width at the primary that keeps my legs splayed outward too far versus down, it is impossible to build or buy a practically and safely usable wash and maintenance elevated surface that you don't fall off of once you get to the top, and that's ignoring getting back DOWN.

A tabletop lift would not work for me for the reasons stated in the first posting of this thread, and would be impossible for me to ride onto safely given my 29" inseam and the width of the primary. (I would not be able to put my feet down once on the surface of the tabletop lift even when it is fully lowered because it would be too narrow, and the floor would be too much lower).

I'm back to think tank mode.

Getting older and losing the ability to do things you could do before really sucks.

Jim G
 

Last edited by JimGnitecki; 07-11-2024 at 05:19 PM.
  #49  
Old 07-11-2024 | 05:24 PM
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Jim,
It's not hard to put the bike on the lift.
Any lift.

You roll the lift up to it on the upwind/uphill side, shove it side to side to where you want.
Then pull the handlebar to bring the bike up, and roll/slide the jack the rest of the way under the bike.
That's all there is to it.

Your bike has no weird frame protuberances that prevent the use of a jack. It's just a Harley softail.
No, you can't just put the jack anywhere under there, just like you can't under a car.
But with a wee bit of thought, it'll work just fine, and lift the bike quite well.

Once you've figured it out, a touch of white paint or sharpie on the frame to let you position the jack next time without having to go down onto your knees.

 
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  #50  
Old 07-11-2024 | 05:57 PM
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it's not as easy as some of you believe. I am welll down the rabbit hole of HD information and disinformation at this point. They offer several "kits" for bikes they have found via customer reports will NOT work with just the lift itself.

For the Softails AND Touring models, they offer a kit with 2 pieces of very thick rubber tubing that you cut into 4 pieces, and then custom trim to fit around protrusions on the frame, so as to let the rubber pieces deform around the protrusions. This of course degrades stability because the rubber deflects if you jar the bike while working on it. Plus the bright red rubber sleeves don't look so good if left permanently mounted, so you have to put them on and take them off, getting the right locations each time for each customized piece.

For the Dyna models, where the engine apparently sticks down below the frame tubes, they offer metal fixtures that you fasten somehow to the support beams on the lift. Naturally, that makes some lowered Dynas too low to get the lift under. (By the way, Big Blue has some similar metal kits for various non-Harley bikes)

HD's parts and accessories webpage warns me that the lift "won't work with your bike". One of the HD reps who answered a similar Q&A for the lift thought that was just because of a defective parts and accessories software module that recognizes only parts that are actually OEM, can be added, can replace an OEM part, or can be bolted to a specific HD model, and by default disqualifies any generically usable product, but I gotta wonder.

The HD Q&As for the lift also repeatedly address cylinder bolts backing out, the rapid descent issue, and hydraulic cylinders that just stop working. One guy had his lift refuse to lower while the bike was elevated, and per the date stamps on the question and the replies, and the followups, 2 months later HD Corporate still had not given the guy a solution of any sort! I'm not kidding. Look for yourself in the reviews and Q&As at:
https://www.harley-davidson.com/ca/e...ift/p/92900004

Abd by the way, the actual average satusfaction rating for the HD lift in their selling webpage is only 3 out of 5 stars, and that's even with multiple 3-star reviewers noting the repetitive issues. The lift is not anywhere near as "ok" as an HD customer would hope.

Jim G
 

Last edited by JimGnitecki; 07-11-2024 at 06:01 PM.
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