I went through all this figgerin and cypherin back in January and ended up with the Sears yellow for $151.00 out ther door. It was 10% off that day. I have since built couple of oak spacers to keep the lift surface from comming up against the crossover bracket/pipe.

 

I will have to see them all in person to decide for sure. Looks like I have a bit of riding to do in the next few days!

This is a temporary solution as I will be buying the Harbor Freight 1000 lb air/hydraulic lift table before the year is up.

 

You bring up an interesting subject: the Harbor Freight table. I would like to get one of these but my fear is that it looks like with the bike up, it will be top heavy and if you bump into, it and the bike will topple over. If someone has this lift, please chime in.

 

The Sears red jack is a very good jack and can be had foraround $70 I have had one for years and it works on every thing Sportsters, Dyna's, Touring.

 

+1

But like SportyPig said, even with my custom, I have to stand the bike up and fiddle with the jack to get it under the bike. All in all it only takes a minute or so.

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q...C/IMG_0057.jpg

 

I see you come in on the kick stand side of the bike interesting I have the same jack and have been coming in from the other side...and having problems with the stand being in the way......how do you do this?? Are you sitting on the bike while you start to jack it up??? Bob

 

Sat

54°F | 36°F[/align]Sun

45°F | 32°F[/align]
Have fun riding!!!

 

Saturday isn't gonna be bad at all. Anything over 40 degrees is fine by me. Sunday, well I'll believe the snow stories when I see them for myself.

Just to throw one more into the mix... http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1...yword=otc+jack

 

The best jack to lift your bike is the jack you can get under the frame. If you can't get the lift under the bike then it doesn't matter how much or how little you spent because you can't lift the bike. Read these forums and you will see many messages from guys that bought an economical jack that worked great for dozens of other people only to find out the jack was too high to fit under the bike.

All of the jacks look nearly the same in the pictures on the internet but they have dramatically different resting low heights. The Larin MAL-2C has resting height of 2 1/2 inches. The red Sears Craftsman has a resting height of 5 inches.

Measure from the lowest part on your frame to the floor and get the height from frame to concrete. Look for a jack that is LOWER than this height when the jack is in the lowest position.

Once you have narrowed your candidates to jacks that fit under your bike then read reviews on that jack to get user experience with stability.

I have the red Sears Craftsman. It did fit under my 883 Sportster if I tipped the bike a little. I had to raise my Road King Classic off the kickstand to get the jack under the big bike.

Then I lowered the Road King Classic with the Harley-Davidson lowering kits 54631-02B (rear) and 54514-05 (front) which lowered the frame to 4 1/2 (plus 1/16 if I'm lucky) inches from the floor. The red Sears Craftsman no longer would fit under the bike tipped or not.

The HD lift P/N 94653-98 states the minimum clearance needs to be 4 1/2 inches.

I like the idea of the HD lift because it uses a crank instead of a hydraulic bottle. The crank allows you to lower the bike at a speed of your choosing to safely put the bike back on the ground.

The bottle jacks are somewhat more difficult to control the lowering speed of the bike and I've seen some of the videos on the Internet where the bikes drop pretty quick and the bike abruptly leans to the kickstand side. This seems a little risky to me and the red Sears Craftsman I had behaved the same way.

My bottom line message is to measure the clearance under your frame then find a jack that will get under the bike. Once you have several jacks selected, then understand their stability with the bike on the jack and when lowering the jack. Then make your purchase.

If you bike is lower than 4 1/2 inches then the Larin MAL-2C and perhaps one or two others are your only choice.

 

That is what i use and a little flat jack for tire removal
no more leaning over to work on bike.
only drawback is storage
and after you have stabilizer locked in it aint going nowhere,very stable
my sporty and big old FLT sits on there now and then.
well worth it ,but when i got mine got 100.00 off price so out the door it went
like i said only drawback is storage