Needed to get the final drive out this weekend and unfortunately like most crusers the V Star doesnt have a center stand and I dont have $100 for a bike jack.
Whats a guy to do? Make his own lift MacGyver style out of stuff lying around the house of course!
Step 1. Lumber: I used this 1 x 12 that I had left over from some other project. I’d recommend not using pine like I did, my boards were creaking and cracking under the weight of the bike as I lifted it and I was afraid it might snap the boards in half lengthwise. Use a hardwood or something a little stronger. A 2 x 10 would also be better.
My free board started out at 6 ft, so I just roughly measured and cut this in half to double it up for 2 inches thick. Then I used as many screws as I could get in on one charge of the cordless drill to bind them together tightly.
Holding the bike level I measured the distance from the frame rails to the ground and added an inch and a quarter to inch and a half. This came out to 9 inches for me with the stock suspension. I then trimmed the boards to that width.
This is what I used for the handle, a 3 foot section of 3/4″ pipe and 2 floor flanges.
Mark the holes with one of the flanges and drill as straight as possible, then bolt them together with one on each side of your board. This will prevent the bolts from pulling through the wood under the weight of your bike and causing bad things to happen, like dented tanks and scratched paint jobs.
Tighten up the pipe on one of the flanges and its good to go. Thats it!
It actually worked better with the handle on the high end of the board to give a bit more of a lean angle to the board for more stabilization. If I were to use this again, I might nail some carpet or some pieces of old tire rubber along the edge to help protect the paint.
Plenty of clearance to get the rear tire off.
I had one of those several years ago and ended up buying a real bike lift… I am glad that you enjoyed the article I posted about the single carb conversion.
I ended up buying a real one from Harbor Freight also, after the clutch cratered on my BMW and I needed something to go up quite a bit higher.
Simple idea and cheap too. Might not be good for serious work, but for simple maintenance & cleaning this works just fine. I also have a HF lift for ‘real’ work but use something like this to get my tires off the ground over the winter storage season. Just use 2 of these for storage. Cheapest way to prevent flat spots on your tires in the spring!
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It’s actually a nice and useful piece of info. I’m glad that you shared this helpful information with us. Thanks for sharing.
[…] you can see I also upgraded from my poor mans bike stand to one from Harbor Freight for this operation for a bit more stability and lift, I needed one for […]
Hi Lynx, how did you get the bike actually upright on the board/makeshift stand?
Thanks,
Katrina.
Slide the board under the frame and then push the handle down. Once the bike passes the tipping point with the board straight up and down the weight of the bike will push the handle the rest of the way down and hold the stand in place
If you need a center stand for the V star 650 you should check out http://www.vs650upright.com
Looks like a nice product. Don’t forget to make one for the V Star 1100s also.