Titan Bike lift @ Walmart

[phoo]

Awesome. Yep, mine arrived today, too. Came on a pallet jack and they left the pallet. I had to have my kid help me get it into the garage. But surely you wouldn't want a table lift to be light, so I guess that's a good thing.


~Patrick

[Twist]

Yeah, I just hope it's easy to roll around when I want to reposition it. I'm going to uncrate mine today.

[Twist]

It came almost completely assembled with very little to do to make it usable: install the wheel chock and tie down loops and pedals, that's about it.



As some people have reported, the wheel chock that comes with it is useless. It doesn't hold the bike in place at all while strapping it down unless you fiddle with the screw clamp and even then it's next to useless. I have a Condor wheel chock I've been using for years when I haul a bike in the back of my pickup truck. I looked around online to see if I could find something better and came up empty.

By the way, this lift isn't made by Titan. When I called to ask about accessories they told me they'd never made a red moto lift and that I was actually looking for a company called Titan Ramps. I looked around on the Titan ramps web site and never found the moto-lift or any accessories so I circled back to my Condor.

I took the wings off of the Condor to make it fit. I thought about cutting some length off the wings to make it more sturdy but decided that mounting it to the base plate of the Titan lift would be enough. Drilled the four holes I needed to mount up the Condor:



Works like a charm to hold the bike steady while I'm getting the straps on it. This wheel chock held my 1200GS stead in the back of my truck so I expect the same on this lift.



The only other thing I might look in to would be some better wheels/castors. I can roll it around with this little XT250 on it pretty easily but it would be a chore with my GS or anything that big. That should be a pretty easy mod even if I have to fashion up some adapter plates for the wheels.

[juddspaintballs]

With the chock bolted down like that, how do you remove the front wheel?

[phoo]

With the chock bolted down like that, how do you remove the front wheel?

This is a really typical setup for a table lift. If you have to take the front wheel off, you wouldn't put the bike in the chock and treat the table like a floor. I also know people who hang the bike from the ceiling while on the table when they are doing front end work. In fact, when I did the fork swap on my SV650 back in the day, we lifted the bike up on the table, chained it from the frame to the ceiling, removed the upper triple clamp, lowered the table so the bike would be suspended from the chain, pulled out the old forks, put the new forks on the table and lifted the new forks up on the table such that it slid into place on the bike (which was still hanging from the ceiling. It really made for easy work.

I also set my table up today. I'm not worried about moving it while a bike is on it; that seems super sketchy. But I did learn that if the table rocks at all while it's up with the bike on it, adjust the stabilizing screws next to the front wheels to take out all slop. The front left adjusts the rear right and the front right adjusts the rear left. When I first lifted my bike up, I noticed that hte rear right wheel actually was sloppy on the axle. Adjusted those screws, and it's solid as a rock. I had it all the way up, with a bike on it, then climbed up onto the table, sat on the bike and bounced and moved side to side. It was totally confidence-inspiring. Still 300# lighter than something like an ST1100, but very nice. Well worth the $300, and more.


~Patrick

[Motomofo]

I use a moto jack on top of my lift and under the bike. Never mess with straps and don't worry about the crappy front wheel chock. Front end work isn't an issue. I park my main bike this way after every ride unless I have a project bike on the lift at the time. It's been a great and economical lift over the years. I think you guys will enjoy that version.

[Twist]

Long ago I installed an electric wench in the ceiling for swapping the hard top on/off my Jeep Wrangler. That's what I use for suspending the front of the bike when needed. It'll easily handle a couple hundred pounds.

[phoo]

That's a pretty sweet setup; I might have to do something similar. I imagine with that 2:1 reduction like you have, you could get away with using an ATV winch to lift a motorcycle. I'm sure it would be my rafters that were the limiting factor before the winch.


~Patrick

[phoo]

Ah, yeah. Hm. I now realize that your setup spreads the load out to two joists in addition to the mechanical advantage...

I wonder if my having screwed 1/2" or 3/4" (I forget which) up in the attic counts as further distribution of weight? Not that I want to support a car from my ceiling, but it would be nice to know I wasn't operating on the ragged edge every time I worked on a bike that was suspended from the ceiling.


~Patrick

[Twist]

Having a tall ceiling in the garage is definitely a plus as well.

That space in the photo where I have the lift and bike next to a garage window is where I've kept my Kendon 3 rail trailing standing up on end. I'll be throwing the trailer out for sale at a price that should move it quickly so stay tuned if interested. I loaned it out last week and should be getting it back this weekend to take some photos and post it up for sale.