Some square tubing, and time on my hands.
A while ago I saw someone selling a bike lift here on the forums. Someone else also posted
some links to plans or a DIY version. Alas those plans needed to be purchased. Nonetheless,
I decided to build my own bike lift using my own plans. Now I'm not CAD hotshot, so I drew
some plans on paper as it was much quicker. To validate my ideas I also built a small lego
model of my bike lift, albeit a very rudimentary one. But it worked, and so the the project
began by spending more and more time in the garage.
I decided to use 50mmx 50mm x 2mm square tubing, which turned out to be quite heavy for not
a lot of strength. Being thin (the steel, not me) and not being a good welder (me, not the
steel) I ended up burning more holes during welding than you would find in swiss cheese.
OK, time to up my google-fu and find some youtube videos on welding.
Cool, some hours of practise later and I can throw enough welding rods at the steel to
make it stick together. So far so good. But like with most best laid plans, these do not
work out quite the way I planned when I bolted a 50mm x 3mm tube to the frame as a lift
point for the jack. This is where I almost dropped my bike as the tube bent and slipped
out of the u-bolts. OK, time for a rethink. Clearly this 2mm steel is not going to cut it,
but this is how you learn I suppose. Also, using 2mm sheet metal for the top ended up
bending under the weight of the bike. Time to bring some wood in.
So after many weekends in the garage I decided to redo the bottom frame, using 50mm x 50mm
x 5mm angle iron. This turned out to be a good decision, being much stronger and more
stable than the square tubing. I still kept the square tube top frame, though, with a sheet
of 18mm ply wood for the top.
Initially the idea was to have the table raise about 900mm off the ground, so it is usable
as a workshop table when not lifting the bike. But, simple math showed me that using my
little trolley jack 200mm up on the 1000mm legs would require a force of about 1.5 tonnes
to lift the bike. I settled for raising it only 700mm, with shorter legs (800mm) and the
jack point about 30% up. This means that I needed approximately 750kg of force in order to
lift the bike (bike is about 220kg + top frame of table about 30kg or so).
Another challenge was to make the bike lift be no higher than 200mm when completely lowered,
as I wanted to park my bakkie on top of it. The lowest point of the bakkie, the diff, was
about 230mm off the ground.
All in all I succeeded in most of my goals. The table stands 200mm high and raises up to
700mm. In reality, with the bike on top I found it does not need to go higher than about
400mm in order to work on the bike comfortably.
Some pictures:
1. My very rudimentary lego model.
2. All the steel cut, ready for welding.
3. All put together, ready for the first lift.
4. Oops, this tubing is not going to work.
5. I even tried a high-lift jack variant. It didn't work. Tip... don't ever try modifying a high-lift jack.
6. Ahh, thicker steel and welded - not bolted. This might work!
7. A lick of paint to make it look nice.
8. And here we are!
9. Fits in nicely (only just!) underneath the bakkie too.
Todo. Still need to glue some conveyer belt to the table top to make a nice work surface,
but for now all is good. Think I'll go clean the garage now.
A while ago I saw someone selling a bike lift here on the forums. Someone else also posted
some links to plans or a DIY version. Alas those plans needed to be purchased. Nonetheless,
I decided to build my own bike lift using my own plans. Now I'm not CAD hotshot, so I drew
some plans on paper as it was much quicker. To validate my ideas I also built a small lego
model of my bike lift, albeit a very rudimentary one. But it worked, and so the the project
began by spending more and more time in the garage.
I decided to use 50mmx 50mm x 2mm square tubing, which turned out to be quite heavy for not
a lot of strength. Being thin (the steel, not me) and not being a good welder (me, not the
steel) I ended up burning more holes during welding than you would find in swiss cheese.
OK, time to up my google-fu and find some youtube videos on welding.
Cool, some hours of practise later and I can throw enough welding rods at the steel to
make it stick together. So far so good. But like with most best laid plans, these do not
work out quite the way I planned when I bolted a 50mm x 3mm tube to the frame as a lift
point for the jack. This is where I almost dropped my bike as the tube bent and slipped
out of the u-bolts. OK, time for a rethink. Clearly this 2mm steel is not going to cut it,
but this is how you learn I suppose. Also, using 2mm sheet metal for the top ended up
bending under the weight of the bike. Time to bring some wood in.
So after many weekends in the garage I decided to redo the bottom frame, using 50mm x 50mm
x 5mm angle iron. This turned out to be a good decision, being much stronger and more
stable than the square tubing. I still kept the square tube top frame, though, with a sheet
of 18mm ply wood for the top.
Initially the idea was to have the table raise about 900mm off the ground, so it is usable
as a workshop table when not lifting the bike. But, simple math showed me that using my
little trolley jack 200mm up on the 1000mm legs would require a force of about 1.5 tonnes
to lift the bike. I settled for raising it only 700mm, with shorter legs (800mm) and the
jack point about 30% up. This means that I needed approximately 750kg of force in order to
lift the bike (bike is about 220kg + top frame of table about 30kg or so).
Another challenge was to make the bike lift be no higher than 200mm when completely lowered,
as I wanted to park my bakkie on top of it. The lowest point of the bakkie, the diff, was
about 230mm off the ground.
All in all I succeeded in most of my goals. The table stands 200mm high and raises up to
700mm. In reality, with the bike on top I found it does not need to go higher than about
400mm in order to work on the bike comfortably.
Some pictures:
1. My very rudimentary lego model.
2. All the steel cut, ready for welding.
3. All put together, ready for the first lift.
4. Oops, this tubing is not going to work.
5. I even tried a high-lift jack variant. It didn't work. Tip... don't ever try modifying a high-lift jack.
6. Ahh, thicker steel and welded - not bolted. This might work!
7. A lick of paint to make it look nice.
8. And here we are!
9. Fits in nicely (only just!) underneath the bakkie too.
Todo. Still need to glue some conveyer belt to the table top to make a nice work surface,
but for now all is good. Think I'll go clean the garage now.
