Best Jack for Handy Lift

All things K & Sportster

Re: Best Jack for Handy Lift

Postby Redpan » Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:45 pm

Image

Walmart. 12 bucks.
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Re: Best Jack for Handy Lift

Postby riverdog » Mon Dec 10, 2018 8:32 pm

Me being a cheap guy, I used to use on of these, I modified it with an *x2 piece of flatbar welded to the lifting pad so it would lift both side of a frame cradle, but while it lifted fine it had no side stability, as it only sits on a small pad, and the bike could easily be rocked side to side even in the tire vise, so grabbed one of the small scissor jacks when they became available, its much sturdier...its more money but the peace of mind is cheap
Bob
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Mobile Handy Lift - a good idea?

Postby hennesse » Tue Dec 11, 2018 10:24 am

This discussion brought back a memory of something I was gonna do about 10 years ago, but never did...

Myers Cycle Engineering, an independent shop in Kensington MD has been around as long as I can remember. Small space, so he is well organized. He has a bunch of Handy lifts, and he put casters on all of them. If a bike was disassembled waiting for parts or customer authorization*, he could just push it up against a wall, and pull another bike out into the open space to work on it.

myers.jpg
Myers' Mobile Handy lift
myers.jpg (81.48 KiB) Viewed 5837 times

Here's a picture from his website. You can plainly see two casters attached to the side of the table. When the table is lowered, table and casters are sitting on the ground, and the scissor-legs of the lift are off-the-ground. Thus, easy to push around in any direction. Once the table is raised, the scissor-legs are solidly on the ground.

Great! But how do you keep the lift from moving around when you're loading or unloading a bike? The photo shows another ground-contact thing just forward of the rear caster, but I can't figure out what it is from the photo. I'll have to call or go up there and see if he will let us in on his secret, maybe get a better photo.

MEANWHILE - The challenge: what is the "Secret Ground-Contact Thing", and how can we fabricate an equal - or better - one?



* I was an automobile mechanic in the 1970s, and a significant obstacle to to making a fortune was what to do with partially-disassembled cars waiting for either customer authorization to proceed, or parts delivery, or both. It was Murphy's law. If you reassembled the car and parked it in the parking lot (possibly pushing it there), the authorization (or parts) would come minutes later. If you left it sitting disassembled on the lift, you'd never hear nothin' from nobody, and the carcass would tie up that lift all day long.
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Re: Best Jack for Handy Lift

Postby jOe » Sun Dec 16, 2018 6:49 pm

Way back in time, I attached some U brackets to the beams above my shop area and used a ratchet type cable winch. It worked fine. If I needed to, I lowered the bike on a wooden block for stability. It also had the advantage of access to the underside without a jack being in the way.
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