Hey guys,

So I usually don't post much on here as I bought a decent example of a GSF and just service it and keep it stock. I like it but it just doesn't 'speak to me' for modifying like other vehicles do.

Anyway, I've started a project that is motorcycle related and when I build some bigger stuff I usually like to keep tabs on where I'm up to on it. Helps that forum software also puts a date & time to posts and I can put things in chronological order.

My project is........a lift table for my GS500! I know this may not interest some people as you may be more limited by space than I am and this isn't a traditional motorcycle build thread / project. I know I could just go and buy a lift table off of the interwebz but after looking around - no company makes what I'm chasing. Also, leading into the space limitations before, I will also be making use of another piece of equipment I have at my disposal as this will take up less space and be lighter than a traditional motorcycle lift and it will be thinner and able to be stacked vertically against the wall when not in use.

Did some sketching and worked out some sizes based on the usual lift tables and I've decided on overall dimensions of 2100x800mm (82.68" x 31.5" for 'muricans that don't understand metric). I am going to put some cutouts in the corners to make it fit in a specific spot. It is a bit longer and a bit wider than what you'd find on eBay etc

Went and bought some solid 50mm round stock, some DN40 extra heavy wall pipe, 30x30x3mm equal angle and 50x25x1.6mm RHS: 1 x DIY lift table frame  :

The above is just for the main frame so far, I think I should have enough metal left over from other projects to make a ramp.


^ Got the RHS cut and notched so it is already working together to hold itself. It isn't too far off of square either like this. Only minor tweaking should be needed when it comes to welding.


^ Here is the angle iron that will act like an outer frame for the sheet of steel that I mount on top. I have recessed the angle into the RHS so it ends up closer to flat.

The square in the middle is around 740x345mm (inside to inside - going to have a lift out section) for oil changes as I think having a lift is one of the reasons to not have to put one of those little oil drain pans down like you would on the ground. That last photo also gives a bit of an insight into why I am making my own (and also why no company manufactures what I want as there'd be very little market for them).

Next step will be welding but I am waiting to get my bottle of shielding gas and welding helmet back (father in law is borrowing to see if my welding helmet is better than his for his new AC/DC Tig - he has trouble seeing the puddle with his as the shielding gas obscures the view in his and he was also out of gas!). I have ordered some tie down points, castors (they are expensive locally!!!!) and a wheel chock for the front wheel. Will probably be here in the next week I'd reckon so there will be a forced break after welding up the frame while I wait on parts (I didn't want to spend 30-40 aussie pesos per castor locally).

Any questions please ask if you did read this far but otherwise I'll keep updating this for me as I build it and we'll see who else comes along for the ride 

COOL!!! I'll be watching, that's for sure

Thanks SBW. Hopefully you get something out of it - even if it is a bit of time wasting while you read 

I was at it again today and pushed forward. I am now at a point where I am waiting on the postie and myself to go and buy a large sheet of metal (probably go a full sheet at 2400x1200mm).


^ Pulled the frame apart to be able to get the angle grinder in as far as I can to vee out the metal for welding. You can also see that I notched the RHS so that the sides that will be in tension when the table is loaded will not have been cut by me. I figure this is extra safety as the frame could hold together by itself and then I have now gone and welded everything.


^ Wasn't too far off of square so I put a ratchet strap on it and tightened it down slightly just to bring the 90° angles in the centre back to spot on. You can also see some previous handy work in this picture too - I fabbed the tyre / wheel holders.

What followed was lots of welding. Now, I'm not a pro and I don't hold a ticket but I'm hoping that everything will hold together once it is in use. Internet welders feel free to pass on helpful advice. Unfortnately due to the size I had to do a lot of uphill / downhill welding which I don't have as much experience with.



^ Obligatory close up weld shots with my woeful phone camera with the pink ring around every photo I take.


^ Frame is fully welded and ready to go. Still has to be prepped for paint / powder coating (I'm leaning towards powder coating but I'm not sure what colour either way). I still have some stand offs to make before then so it'll stay like this until they and the castors are welded on (waiting on the castors to know the height before proceeding further).


^ I put so much heat into it today trying to get good welds (I'm sure I did get good penetration) that the frame sort of bowed in towards the middle :-(. It isn't too bad as I was planning an opening in the middle of the table for oil draining etc so this will just mean instead of any fluids escaping onto my legs / shoes it will sort of work its way towards the centre. I don't have a welding table anywhere near big enough that I could've bolted it down to either as this is one of the larger items I have fabbed. I put more priority on getting lots of good, strong welds. Normally I would've aimed for it to be flatter and just did a stitch weld here and there to join it all together but I'm really, really chasing strength for this frame seeing as it will have a bike on top of it.

I'd really like to know how much wire & gas I burned through today. Man I put some heat into this thing - good news is I can't even tell if it flexes under my weight. I'm almost tempted to put either end across something firm and set up my dial indicator (resolution down to 0.01mm) and see what that tells me  That will be it for a while until maybe next weekend but it will have to fit in between helping my brother in law move house (I have a ute and he doesn't).

I don't know much about welding, I'll be honest... but they look good to me. I've seen some welds on the internet that have made me go  and yours aren't some of them!!! I would be leaning towards powdercoating too. And nice wheel/tire rack too!

Despite the lack of updates - I have actually been working on this. Most of the hold up was waiting for the casters which took forever to get here. Turns out I must've missed the slip in the mail and it sat at the receiver for a week of more before they sent it back and I got a call from the courier! Anyway - got that sorted and was back into it.

Last weekend I cut out the top for the table from 1.6mm hot rolled mild steel sheet. Lots of angle grinder time and went through a cutting disk (I don't have a photo for some reason).

Ended up recieving my cheap ebay wheel chock for the front wheel (made for free standing on the floor normally). I'm going to adapt it to bolt to the frame so the first thing I did was drill some holes and install some M8 nut-serts:

This way I can unbolt it and still use it as a free standing unit if I want. The nutserts don't protrude past the rubber feet so they won't contact the floor.

Next I moved onto mounting up the casters:

Bit of an oversight on my part. I was going to tuck them up into the corner of the frame until I put them on there and realised there wasn't enough room for them to swivel all the way around when I did that. Had some left over 25mm box and went and welded some M8 all thread onto it at the right intervales and came up with a mount. I've only used three of the holes in the casters for now as that's where all the strength is on the frame (the last one will be under the flat sheet). If it bends I'll add some re-enforcing and utilise the last hole.


^ On the casters and it moves around nice and easy (especially because I pulled them apart and greased the bearings as they came dry).


^Checked that I could get it into position by sliding it around (i.e. when the bike is on it as I won't be able to lift it then). Fits but only just. The arms need to be moved in just the right way to get it into position but that means I have the largest work area available. If it was super dooper easy to get into position would mean that the table would need to be smaller. This also shows why I am building my own (and no one makes an off the shelf item to suit what I want. I am lucky enough to have a two post hoist in my shed out the back of my house and I don't want a motorcycle lift also taking up space. Thought I'd combine the two to save room. I'm guessing the load rating would be higher on mine than it would be for a bike lift too - 4 tonnes should be enough to lift a bike. 

Next I mounted up the heavy walled pipe in my metal lathe to actually make the centre round:


And ended up with a smooth bore in one end:


Today is now Sunday and I will continue the lathe work. I'll be turning the solid bar down to the right diameter / size to make them fit the holes in the arms to locate the pipe. Each piece of pipe has a different ID now that it has been cleaned up as I just wanted to clean them up and not take too much meat out of the centre (as the weight of the table / bike will be transferred through these). Planning on making them an interference fit so they never come apart. All will make more sense once you see what I get up to today.

The pipe shown in the photo will then be welded to the frame and then it'll be able to be lifted! Still need to do a fair bit before I can get a bike on there though.

Got into it a bit further today. Took quite a few pictures until my phone died - so I actually did more than what I took pictures of.


^I'd already cut down the 50mm solid round stock into 4 individual pieces (took forever to cut with the abrasive wheel on my chop saw). Mounted it in the 3 jaw chuck and bumped the end of it around and indicated it to within 0.03mm. I faced the end and centre drilled it to use a live centre to keep it located.


^ Live centre and I've already turned one end.



^ Too big to fit which is perfect for an interference fit

^ Got it all turned. I made them all suit the individual pieces of pipe to make sure they were the right size. I ended up deciding that an interference fit was the way to go for retaining them. So the larger end of the solid pieces are actually larger in diameter than the ID of the pipe.


^ Always a good day in the shed when I end up with a bag of swarf (this was only three of them too!

I then cut a couple of slots in the side of the pipe where the ends will fit so I could also add some weld to them for extra security.

I chucked the solid pieces in the freezer for an hour or two (I made sure the bride was out at the gym so she didn't see me put parts in the freezer) and I put the pipe on the BBQ and cranked up the heat:


I didn't get any pictures of the next bit as it was a bit tense! I had to grab the correct solid bit out of the freezer and also get the corresponding bit of pipe off of the BBQ and then put them together to make a permanent connection. I found that on three of them that the dimensions were so tight that they wouldn't slip together. Lucky I had enough time to to get a lump hammer and pound it home the rest of the way.


^ Turned the welder up as high as it would suffer and melted the two together.


^ Mounted them up in the lathe to clean up the weld a bit as best I could (it didn't want to mount concentric because the pipe was nowhere near round when I turned them the first time. I indicated them on the outside before I cleaned up the ID and got them reasonably close but I could tell by looking in the end that the OD wasn't concentric with the ID.

This is the point where my phone went flat.

The rest of the afternoon was spent levelling and measuring and sanding the frame where the mounts attach and putting it on the hoist and up and down etc. Managed to get everything lined up and welded. Put it up on the hoist again and the bride and I hung off of it and it felt very solid with both of us (maybe 65% of the weight of a bike?). The best part is because I made the mounts tighter than the standard lift pads, if I push up on one side of the frame, it starts to actually lift the arms! So I'm not going to do anything to bolt it down as I can't get it to even come close to popping out unless I lift it straight up and jiggle at the same time. Even to get it out on the floor I sometimes have to go a little bit up and back down again to get the arms to drop from the mounts I made.

Hopefully next weekend will be the weekend that I finish this. Still have to cut the centre out of the flat sheet, mount the wheel chock, make a ramp and a way to attach it and add the tie downs that I bought. Anyway, that's it for now. It is starting to actually feel like a bike table and what I envisaged. Feels like I'm on the home straight now.

That is one heck of a nice "shed" sir!  And very impressive machining skills to boot 

If only I could have you as a neighbor... I'm thinking of all the shiny bits we could cobble up!

Thanks Endopotential for the kind words. I seem to get the odd job from mates for this or that once people know I've got machining capabilities

I wouldn't say my machining skills are that good as I am self taught from watching youtube and talking to people who used to do it at tafe. I am nothing on 'Abom79' and he'd probably cringe if he saw me working! The amount of machined stuff I keep working into projects just because I have a lathe / milling machine keeps growing. I always used to think of a way around machined parts as they are so expensive (for the stock but mostly for the time) but now my time is free and it improves my projects overall and gives them a more professional feel / look. I've got a long weekend coming up this weekend (Easter) so I am hoping to get the rest of it knocked over so I can get my bike up on it.

bad azz,...sub'd!

This rig is to lift the bike onto that car lift ?
Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: The Buddha on April 11, 2017, 08:16:29 AM
This rig is to lift the bike onto that car lift ?
Cool.
Buddha.

Yeah Buddha. Basically a motorcycle lift that locks into my 2 post. I push it around on the castors and position it over the arms and the pins that I machined fit into where the standard pads go for lifting a car (they are just high enough to clear the arms to roll the bike around and they won't lock in until I raise the arms like lifting a car).

I am planning when I don't have a bike on the table to store it vertically against the wall to take up the least amount of floor area when not in use. Weight isn't too bad at the moment and I can easily lift the whole thing (and if you saw me in real life you'd see I'm not built for lifting heavy things).

Glad you have enjoyed the thread so far cbrfxr67. I hope I can keep it interesting enough.

Anyone have thoughts on powder coating colours? I was thinking red just because the wheel chock is already red powder coat but on the other hand I was also thinking blue to match the posts of my lift.

Those pics are taking me right back in time to metal shop in high school :dreamy look:

Just curious how your two-post car lift work.  They don't look like they're bolted into the floor.

Is there some cross bar at the top (not captured in your photo) that binds the two together, to keep them from tipping towards the center when a car is up in the air?

Quote from: Endopotential on April 11, 2017, 03:15:16 PM
Just curious how your two-post car lift work.  They don't look like they're bolted into the floor.

Is there some cross bar at the top (not captured in your photo) that binds the two together, to keep them from tipping towards the center when a car is up in the air?

Quick answer: the posts are bolted to the floor and yes there is a top piece that spans the two posts.

Long answer: each post is held in with 5 x 3/4" dia tru bolts (although they were bloody tight in the 20mm holes I had to drill in the concrete). They are essentially expanding anchors - once they go in they don't come out. The part of the floor where the posts sit is reinforced concrete 400mm (15.75") deep. The beam across the top is mainly there just for the equalisation cables to run across (so the arms raise at the same height) and for the hydraulic hose to run from the power unit over to the hydraulic ram in the opposite post. The cross beam doesn't really keep the tops of the posts from  coming into each other as it is very thin gauge steel compared to the posts - the bolts into the floor take all the forces. I purchased a 2 post overhead hoist (where the cables and hydraulic hoses run over the top) but you can also get base plate models that have a plate across the floor. Pros and cons with each type - mainly comes down to what you can fit in your shed.

I don't really have a good pic of mine without cars on it but this is it from the website:


They are basically the same as an Atlas brand lift in the united states of freedom. Not the most expensive but not the cheapest. They have all the right certifications for workplace health and safety over here and I know they are used in workshops (commercial environments).

You can also get four post hoists that don't have to be bolted to the floor but you'll find all two posts will be bolted. Four posters are more used for vehicle storage whereas two posters are better for working on cars as you get access to pretty much everything.

As mentioned before - pros and cons for each type. Sorry to have rambled on but I love my two post hoist. Everytime I get another cool tool I never know how I lived without it before.

Very cool lift.  Which corner of the states are you in?

Glad to have you on the forum; lots of nice folk here.

It can easily turn into a bad addiction, checking this site at work... 

I'm in the South East corner of Queensland (east coast). In a land where everything is upside down, the weather is hot and all the animals are trying to kill me (Australia) 

That's probably why the times of my posts are weird.

This forum seems to have a pretty good feel. I'm on other forums too and usually I post about other stuff I build as well that isn't related to the forum. Glad to be able to share the experience of making this somewhere.

Got into it again today and made some more progress. Getting there which is good. I am hoping to have a bike up on it by the end of the weekend.

I cut the centre of the sheet out with the angle grinder so I had my access hole.


Before I got serious about attaching the sheet to the top of the table I decided to spray a bit of primer around the inaccessible areas



I went ahead and put a couple of tack welds in the corners to attach it but not too well in case I need to pull it off


I made an internal frame for the centre portion in case I ever want to have the bike on the centre stand on the table and welded it (you can see where I stitched it on the under side through the top) - it should have enough strength to support a bike on a centre stand I reckon.


Cut a hole in the centre section for my fingers to remove / replace it in future:


I then went through and cut holes for the tie down anchors. They are flush mount spring loaded jobbies which are nice - beats hooking a ratchet strap over the edge of the table or having a "U" bolt protruding through etc:

All four done:


Assembled it all up:


I ended up changing my mind on how to attach the wheel chock. Decided the way I was initially going to do it was too hard so I drilled the holes through and now have long M8 bolts holding it down into the main frame.


I am going to draw up a ramp for it tonight (as now I know the assembled height of the table 180mm). Hopefully I'll have enough stock left over in my scrap bin to make something tomorrow. It is all good having a lift table but it sucks not being able to get a bike up onto it!

I hope you guys enjoyed this update. Hopefully there will be one or two more over the course of the next couple of days.

That looks frickin' amazing!   Now where's the extension for the sidecar??? 

If your simple bike lift looks this good, I'm dying to see what your bike(s) look like

Sweetness!

SUPER nice 1018 !!!