home made bike lifts

[gavcarter]

I'm now on my second bike lift build and I thought I would I would share with you all.
My first lift was a reliant robin chassis, narrowed down and loads of bits of dubiously thin steel, welded to a 12ton hydraulic press ram. It was crap. It lifted bikes fine, was fairly stable but looked fugly and eventually started to bend and get wobbly.

This time I've aquired a fair bit of 3mm thick rectangular box, from industrial shelving units. It will be infinitely sturdier than the last.

I haven't taken pics from the beginning so ill try and explain as I go along, in the next post as I'm on my mobile and its a bit hit and miss putting pictures on

[gavcarter]

The basic frame is an open ended rectangle with a full rectangle that will fit inside, with enough clearance to get the legs on.

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/Mobile%20Uploads/WP_20141230_12_18_11_Pro_zps3b1488fc.jpg

All the pivots must line up, and be the same distance apart, so the top rails must match the bottom rails and the legs must all match
each other.

[gavcarter]

Forgive my scruffy looking welding, but this is how the pivots were made
https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/Mobile%20Uploads/WP_20141230_12_18_41_Pro_zps62314a95.jpg

One captive nut on each side of rail, or leg.
If i had to do this again, i would make a jig for getting all these dead-on as i had to cut a couple off and shuffle them over and re-weld

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_12_19_53_Pro_zpsb5501dd9.jpg

They need to be somehwere near the end of the rail, If i had more faith in my welding then I would have got them right on the end, and removed the need to raise the lower frame off the floor, making the ramp about 50mm lower than it is now.

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_12_20_09_Pro_zps3a253ac8.jpg


The top is just cable tray, but there is another rail that runs right down the centre of the ramp to stop it bending in over. Its galvanised so it didnt weld very well, after a few tries I gave up and used dome headed roofing bolts to atatch it.

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_12_18_59_Pro_zpsaaaa7a75.jpg

The REAR end of the ramp had a wide rail on, level with the support rails ( so you can drive over it ) but you can only do this at the rear for two reasons.

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_12_24_16_Pro_zpse286a884.jpg

Firstly you have to ride over it, and secondly this happens if the ramp tries to lower in the oppssite direction

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_12_24_36_Pro_zpsbd4d4fbc.jpg

The front rail must be welded ON TOP of the ramp, so it is above the upper support frame, like so

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_12_39_27_Pro_zps04a2a768.jpg

joint cleaned up

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_12_39_41_Pro_zps61b3182b.jpg

Not a bad weld, its getting better, the slag peeled itself

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_12_43_11_Pro_zps1b99a34b.jpg

after a wire bursh you can see, im still practising so the bead width isnt very even, but we have penetration and the gap is filled so i declare that peice stuck!
https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_12_44_29_Pro_zpsc2e6983d.jpg

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_12_45_01_Pro_zpsd19ade1c.jpg


Next we need some eyes on the wider rails, for ratchet straps

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_13_22_54_Pro_zps73241263.jpg

and you can see now why the front rail should be above the upper frame...

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_13_25_19_Pro_zpsabe6328e.jpg


To keep the legs at a + angle , i stuck a couple of nuts on the bottom rails where the wide rails touches it.
This just keeps the legs slighty raised and makes it a lot easier to start the lift moving.

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_13_48_46_Pro_zps422ecd69.jpg

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_13_48_57_Pro_zpsdb1590f6.jpg

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_13_52_07_Pro_zps0bf8cfae.jpg

Its more apparent on the rear legs, where my floor is a bit flatter

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_13_52_27_Pro_zps42d4f948.jpg

So fully down the ramp has a total height of about 115mm, or 4 1/2" in black and white
https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/gavcarter12/WP_20141230_13_53_12_Pro_zps534d2ca1.jpg

You could knock and inch off for the uneven floor, and if you rounded the bottoms of the legs, or got the pivots very close the the bottom you could take off another 40-50mm because I welded box section feet on the bottom of the lower rails to clear the legs off the floor.

Will add, the lifting mech after new year, when it eventually arrives....
And also a small hinged ramp at the rear.

Then I have a lot of grinding to do to tidy up all the rought cuts etc

thats it for now anyways, hope it got a few of you thinking

[jjdugen]

Hells Bells! Why not just hang a winch from a rafter, or, if you want to practice welding, make up an A frame?
____________________
The CBR900RR has been sold. Aprilia Falco worms its way into my heart.
Try Soi 23 on Amazon for a good read.... Self promotion? Moi?

[gavcarter]

I did think about a winch, but I would need to make a big a frame too lift attach it, between the limited space on the floor and the low roof I think I need something smaller.

I have ordered a powered scissor jack, so I will make up the linkages and get it setup when it comes, I cant do it yet or it will be pure guesswork

[RhynoCZ]

These are pointless, you need something, that'll lift the bike so the wheels are in the air. The lift you made is only good for your back, nothing else.
____________________
'87 Honda XBR 500, '96 Kawasaki ZX7R P1, '90 Honda CB-1, '88 Kawasaki GPz550, MZ 150 ETZ
'95 Mercedes-Benz w202 C200 CGI, '98 Mercedes-Benz w210 E200 Kompressor

[Supermoto_Fan]

Without sounding rude, how much has it cost you in cash?

And how many hours have you/will you spend making this?

When you can buy the same kind of thing from as little as £300? With some kind of backup too, if this creation breaks who are you going to cry too?

But if your just doing it because you can then
____________________
Yamaha MT-09 - Triple powerrrr

[gavcarter]

I find them fairly useful, I hate sat on the floor with a dog licking ya ears, trying to hold the bike up right with one hand, and tools in the other.

I am looking at / thinking about adding a swingarm pivot stand, type thingy. The idea being to lift the bike by its swingarm pivot then ratchet one end down tighter than the other to hold the wheel off the floor.

Its cost about £5 so far - for a pack of weld nuts, and will cost about £50 total when the jack etc arrives.

All the steel was FREE as it was unwanted, the cable tray was free, the bolts and washers were just kicking around.

So far i've put about 3 days into it ( broken up into an hour here an hour there), but that included moving countless tools, bike parts and bits of crap off about 4 metres of benches, dismantling said benches and finding places to put all the above crap.

If i had all the steel and empty space to start with, it would have probably taken around two days.

Ive probably got another good few hours playing with levers and pivot points before I weld the jack into it and call it done

The full size tables dont leave me any room to walk around it, and probably wont adjust far enough to level out on my really crap floor...... and its more fun making one anyway