I had time to finish my working stand. Can't say everything is perfect, but it works. For one thing, when going up, it has a tendency of lifting one side more than the other for the first foot or so, then it evens out, when going down, when it gets down to the last foot, it drops one side more than the other.

The steel plates are removeable so either a front or a back wheel can drop straight down, the center is also removeable to put an oil pan (not built yet). The good part is that it is only two inches high so I can put the bike on the lift all by myself. Now all I have left is to paint it. Total cost was about $300 for steel, a 1500 lb winch and a new battery, the rest is time and welding rod.





Bad picture showing the safety lock


Jean

Very cool.

I wish I had one...

Good thinking of building the bike first and the working stand later !
Otherwise those nice wooden boards would have been all dirty by now .

Between my aging knees and bad back I needed some kind of system to lift my bike high enough so I could stand up and work on it. I didn't have the extra cash to lay out on a proper platform bike stand and I had this heavy duty drafting table base I don't use any more so I took the top off (it had a 4x5 foot light table top that weighed 200 - 250 lbs and you could tilt this massive light table 90' to a vertical position too). It was one heavy pedestal stand. It had a worm gear powered by a small electric motor that would raise and lower it from 30" up to about 50". I figured it would make a cool bike stand that would have an adjustable height and it should support a 400lb. bike with a little beefing up. With the 90' tilt it would make oil changes a snap by tilting the bike on it's side and draining the oil out the oil tank. After strengthening up the top base with aluminum reinforcing and changing the feet to take some caster wheels without making it any higher than it was, it was ready.

I put a small winch in the rafters ($40.00 at Canadian Tire) to lift bikes high enough to get the stand under.



Because of my Dunstall exhaust I added 3.5" wood blocks for the bottom frame rails to sit on. This will also allow access from below.



Here's the bike just lowered on the stand.



At it's lowest height the top frame rail is at my armpit in height.



At the highest height the bottom frame rail is at my armpit height. It's not too pretty but I think I'm going to enjoy not having to bend down to get at things. Eventually I'll make some add on pockets for the wheels but I haven't figured out what will be the best way to do it yet. I think it will become obvious in time.

Oh, by the way I'm only joking about using the 90' tilt to tilt the bike on it's side to drain the oil, I removed the tilt mechanism

Hey Jean, as I was reading through this thread I was thinking of suggesting the winch to power your lift. I've been thinking of building one of these scissor lifts also using a winch.

What I don't like about mine is you need to remove the tank and seat to hoist it up 1st. For quick jobs it's not so convenient.

I like the access and the fact there is no leaning forward like if you were lifting an engine in you can stand right up to the bike. It also has a small foot print and is quite mobil.

I'm lucky enough to have a roof structure that allowed this set up. I have a 7'4" ceiling supported by large beams along the sides of the 8' span with a 7' - 5' sloped roof attic above that. The attic is open for the last 6' at the low end of the sloped shed roof. Some day I may put an I beam with trolly for hoisting bikes right up to the attic for storage. Here's my bracing for the winch.