From the Boutique:

Building Rickko's Bike Lift

Courtesy of

For quite awhile I'd been reading the ads looking for a reasonably priced bike lift because I knew the time was coming when I'd have to replace my front and rear tires. I wanted to remove them myself so I needed to find a way to get the wheels off the ground at home.

I was also getting tired of crouching into a small ball on the left side of my bike every time I cleaned it. Again, I wished my bike could stand free in an upright position.

The sophisticated lifts I saw advertised cost in excess of $400 and the inexpensive ones, about $80. So, like many others before me, I decided to experiment a little and build one myself.

After talking to friends and seeing examples of other homemade lifts, I came up with a pretty simple one. It will take you about 1/2 hour of time shopping at Home Depot; then 15 minutes to assemble, and cost you less than twenty dollars.

To construct this lift you'll need the following items. (Some, you might have laying around your garage; which if true, will save you even more.) These are Home Depot's prices as of 4/28/97.

(1) 3 ft. long 4" x 8" Douglas fir	@ $2.00/linear foot	$6.00
(1) 4' x 3/4" galv. threaded pipe	@ $4.32	$4.32
(1) 3/4" galvanized pipe flange	@ $3.11	$3.11
(4) 3 1/2" x 5/16" lag bolts	@ .50 each	$2.00
	Sub-Total	$15.43
	CA Tax	1.20
	Total	$ 16.63

Note 1: After building the lift I found the pipe flange from Home Depot is from Taiwan and a little brittle (although I'm still using it, cracked and all). I suggest trying to find a stronger one at your local hardware store.

Note 2: For a Sportster frame you'll need a 28" long piece of 2x4 and four long nails to secure it to the 4" x 8" and 2 1" eye bolts.

You'll need the following tools to assemble your lift:

• Pencil & Ruler
• Electric (not battery powered) Drill
• 1 3/8" Paddle bore drill bit (Will cost about $5 at Home Depot)
• 3/16" Wood drill bit
• 1/2" Socket to tighten lag bolts
• Small pipe wrench
• Hand saw to notch the wood to compensate for the exhaust header on the Sporty that hangs below the frame or
• A hammer to nail the 2x4 to the 4" x 8" if building this for a Sportster frame.

Instructions:

1. Locate and mark a point on the 8" wide side of the 4"x8"x3' piece of wood that is 3 1/2 " from end and on the centerline of its length (See Assembly Drawing).
2. Using the Paddle bore drill bit, drill a hole through the 4" thickness of the wood centered at the point marked above.
3. Place the Pipe Flange, countersunk, into the hole and mark the four Lag Bolt hole locations on the wood.
4. To ease screwing in the Lag Bolts, pre-drill each lag bolt hole with the 3/16" bit ensuring you are drilling at a good 20 to 30 degree angle away from the centerline of the hole just bored through the wood. Drilling at this angle eliminates the pointy end of the lag bolt from emerging through the other side of the wood when fastening the flange to the wood.
5. Re-seat the flange in the 1 3/8" hole, then screw the lag bolts down securely with the socket wrench
6. Insert the 4' galvanized pipe through the bored hole threading it into the flange and tighten with the pipe wrench.

Your done! You may want to paint the pipe red or orange so it stands out and alerting you not to accidentally trip on it. Another suggestion is to wrap some duct or electrical tape around the handle end of the same pipe for comfort. And lastly, stapling or tacking down some old carpet over the lifting edges of the 4" x 8" will keep the wood from removing paint from your frame each time you lift the the ole scoot.

To operate your lift, insert the wood directly under your frame somewhere beneath the engine. Check that you won't be putting pressure on something you shouldn't and insure the ground beneath your bike is level). If you can with your left hand, hold your bike upright leaving the kickstand extended outward. Now push the handle of your new lift rearward and downward. Wah-laa! Your bike is lifted and in an upright position making it easier to work on, clean and to check the oil (smile, Softail owners).

Notes for Sportster owners. The Sportster front exhaust header is lower than the frame tubes. Using the lift as designed above would cause the 4"x8" lifting surface to put pressure on the exhaust header. Therefore to lift the Sportster properly you'll need to nail a 1"x4" or 2"x4" to the lifting surface of the 4"x8". It should be cut 28" long and aligned flush with the edge where you drilled the hole for the pipe. Robert Kemper mentions this in his email below.

Additionally, because the Sportster frame is so narrow, for safety and security you should purchase two 1" eye-bolts. These would be fastened to the lift so you could run a strap through them and over the seat to keep the bike from falling on either side. Both Robert & Dave talk about this in their email below.

Parts

Assembly Drawing

Front View

Rear View

Sportster Adaptation

Sportster 2x4 shim

Right Side Tiedown

Left Side Tiedown

 

Comments

Email comments or questions or improvements to: Rickko or to Robert, Dave, or Terry if they are related to their XLH lift modifications comments below.

 

From: Robert Kemper
Date: Sun, 24 May 1998

-If you end up buying a 2"X8"X8' to cut in half for the lift because the store doesn't have 4"X8"s, buy 2 1/2" lag screws not 3 1/2".

-The 8" isn't 8". So, you may have to add a piece of 1"X4" to the top (then you get to trim that). This is good because you won't have to cut a notch. I used a 1"X4" that went 4" past mid-line (28" on a 4' board).

- The pipe is not designed to thread all the way to the bottom of the pipe flange. Fortunately, I asked someone who knew that and I didn't foolishly try to return a "defective" flange to the store. Don't EVEN try to thread it from the bottom up to save from counter sinking the flange.

-Only Rickko can build a lift in 15 minutes. Real time including trips to store, borrowing tools from neighbors, etc.- 6 hours.

-Eye bolts are a nice addition to tie the bike down, but when you place the lift so that it catches those rail looking sections on the bottom of the chassis, the bike feels solid as a rock! EXCELLENT LIFT!

 

From: Dave Garretson
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 18:18:48 EDT

Just wanted to send a few improvements to you that I had made to your lift that you have posted on the net.

If you are building this lift for a Sportster recommend the following improvements:

1)  use a 4' long 4" x 8" and put two eye bolts in the wood about 3" from each end so that they face the ceiling when the bike is on the lift.  Now when you put the bike up, take off your seat and use two nylon pull type tie downs to secure the bike frame under the seating area to the lift at the eye bolts. Straddle the bike and pull them tight simultaneously and viola the bike WILL be stable no more worry about the narrow sporty frame and the bike's stability while up on the lift.

2)  When drilling through the wood to install the pipe and flange, use two different size bits so that the wood lends some support to the pipe and the flange doesn't take all of the weight.  I did this and used the same flange you did; however, my pipe flange has yet to break or crack.

From: Terry Bayne
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 07:48:21 -0800

Saw the posts about Rickko's lift and thought I would mention the mods I made.

First gotta say thanks to Rickko!  I built one about a year ago and use it at least twice a month, if not more often.

When I built mine, I had seen the posts about the flange cracking....so I spent a few minutes looking at things before I did the drilling.......

What I ended up doing was two things.....first I drilled the hole in the lift to be the same size as the outside diameter of the pipe - tight enough that it had to be tapped into place. Then I countersunk the flange on the other side (drilling out the existing hole just enough to allow the flange to fit.)  This arrangement allows the pipe and the wood of the lift to take most of the stress, not the flange.