ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2012 and older => Topic started by: Richard230 on March 09, 2012, 12:45:38 AM
-
For the past week I have been thinking about how to jack the front and rear wheels off the ground on my Zero, in case I had to remove the wheels or adjust the steering bearings. Although I have a rear wheel race stand, there are no stand spools on the swing arm and the angle of the lower portion of the arm gave me a little pause. But mostly, because I don't have a helper to steady the bike for me while I use the service stand to jack up the rear wheel from behind the bike, I resorted to the method that I used to get the rear wheel off the ground on my GPR-S.
After trying several different methods of using my jack stands, I found a 24" steel car tire iron in my garage and stuck that through the gap in the upper and lower swing arm sections, just in front of the large hole in the swing arm. I then (with the bike on the side stand and me standing on the left side of the bike) stuck one jack stand under the right side of the tire iron and lifted the left side of the bike, while using my foot to slide the jack stand on the left side under that side of the tire iron. With the jack stands adjusted so that they are not too high, the rear wheel comes off the ground and the bike remained stable, balanced on the two stands and the front wheel.
I then got out my hydraulic floor jack, placed a piece of plywood on top of the jack's lifting dish to spread the load across the bottom of the bike and raised the front wheel off the ground. However, you have to position the jack lifting point so that the bike does not tilt to one side or the other. When lifting using the jack, watch for tilting and if you start to see the bike tilt to the side, just readjust the jack' position.
Attached are photos showing how this works.
-
Here is a photo from the left front.
-
And here is a photo showing the front wheel off of the ground using the floor jack. Both the front and rear wheels are off the ground about an inch, or so.
-
I was just thinking of how to raise up the rear wheel this morning, having just replaced the rear tire on my gas bike. I guess I need to find a tire iron..
-
I was removing the swing arm so this method wouldn't work for that. I just put a motorcycle jack under the rear of the bottom of the bike and it worked fine to raise the rear wheel off the surface and to also allow me to remove the swing arm. I would also do this to remove the wheel, even if I didn't need access to the swing arm.
-
Forget my original post and its Mickey Mouse method of raising the rear wheel off of the ground - unless you are in the middle of nowhere and only have two rocks and a truck tire iron handy. ::)
I just bought a Drag Specialties motorcycle lift and the Zero must have been designed to be raised by this device. It exactly fits the level area under the belly pan, easily lifts the bike and both wheels off of the ground without tipping to either side or front to rear. The lift has a rubber pad on its top that prevents marring the belly pan, it uses a mechanical screw and scissor mechanism to raise the jack, which I like because it doesn't have a tendency to bleed down, like a hydraulic piston might do.
Attached are photos of the lift that I bought from the Motorcycle Superstore for $150, delivered to my door. I am very happy with the way it works and its small size when closed, which makes for easy storage.
-
Here is a closeup photo.
-
And photo of the top of the lift and one showing how compact it is when folded, which not only makes it easy to carry and store, but also easy to slide under the belly pan.
-
I was going to say that Zero sells a stand, but it's $99 and doesn't lift, it just sits there and I guess you have to figure out how to get the bike on it yourself. I guess it's nicer than a cinder block, but it does have a nifty tray for holding tools(?) or a charger. ;)
The Drag Specialties stand looks much nicer (and only $50 more online?)...
-
Yes. Motorcycle Superstore is a very large on-line motorcycle accessory operation based in Oregon, which by-the-way, was just merged with another large company called MAG (Motorsport Aftermarket Group).
-
Rear tire on my '12DS went flat on my way to work last week... Found a wooden spool of wire that was just thick enough to wedge under the right hand side, with the kickstand holding up the left, getting the rear wheel off of the ground. Then it was down to finding a 6mm Allen wrench to remove the cap from one end of the axle and loosen the two pinch bolts. Piece of cake!
I like the scissor-jack idea much better, but sometimes you gotta improvise!
-
Nice find, Richard. I have a larger, hydraulic Craftsman motorcycle jack, but haven't tried it on the Zero. (Actually, the only thing I've used it for is getting a double wall oven up into its cabinet hole. Worked great for that :) This unit is more compact, and looks like it could be easily raised and lowered with a cordless drill.
I also need to find a soft-side cooler like you have on the back. I'm dying for some storage on my DS!
Corey
-
Corey, that seat pack luggage is made by RK, a well-respected soft-luggage company located in Santa Rosa, CA. This pack is a bit pricey, at somewhere around $150, but it is well made and doubles in size by unzipping an expandable upper compartment. I used it to take a lot of stuff to my daughter's home on Easter. My guess is that its capacity is around 30L when it is fully expanded. I have owned that pack for about 10 years and used it on a number of different motorcycles. It has fit and worked well on every one. It is my favorite piece of luggage for carrying stuff on a rear seat.
The pack hooks to the edges of a motorcycle seat with large metal hooks, but the Zero seat doesn't have enough of an edge for the hooks to work, so I took them off and used the stock straps to fasten the pack under the seat pan and under the wheel well (as the seat isn't long enough to mount the pack so that it does not extend past the rear of the seat).
-
Yes, Richard, looks like their "Starr III" model. It looks huge in the pic on their site, but unextended dimensions look reasonable at 9w x 12l x 10h. Thanks for the tip. It's about twice as much as the Dowco, and doesn't include a rain cover, but the RKA seems to fit the seat better in the pics, and has a complete "loop-around" option for the strapping as you noted, as well as a scratch-preventer pad.
Corey
-
I wonder if it would be stable enough to replace the rear wheel? I mean could you crank on the axle bolt? Seems like you would need a swingarm stand to do that.
-
I wonder if it would be stable enough to replace the rear wheel? I mean could you crank on the axle bolt? Seems like you would need a swingarm stand to do that.
Loosen the axle nut 'n bolt with the bike still on the ground, then raise the bike off the ground with the stand and remove it ;)
-
A guy on advrider sells a collapsable sidestand that will elevate the fr or rr of the bike to allow changing a flat. No link sorry, I'm on the mobile.
You'll really like its compactness too.
:-)
-
I agree with craigq, if you loosen the axle nut first, you should have no problem removing the front or rear wheel - unless removing the weight of the wheel shifts the balance of the bike. It would be a good idea to block up the opposite wheel just in case. Otherwise, the bike seemed pretty stable with the bike supported on its belly pan by the stand.
-
I don't see why you couldn't just place a round metal rod through that hole in the frame which is at about the same level as spools would be anyway, then just use a rear stand and engage the metal rod as you would spools. If you were concerned the rod might move, you could always attach a steel hose clamp on each side of the metal rod just outside the stand prongs. Then use your front triple tree stand for the front of the bike. There is already a hole in the bottom of the fork stem that looks to be about 20 mm for a pin. This seems like it would be much more stable that having a bike up in the air balanced in the middle.
-
The first thing I tried was slipping a metal rod through the hole in the frame, but the rod moved around and the bike wasn't very stable. So instead of trying to figure out how to make it secure in the frame, I just gave up and bought the bike lift. It really works well and the bike is very stable when raised on the stand. I still think this is the best solution, but of course it is not the only solution to raising the wheels off of the ground.
-
http://www2.snapfish.com/hpphotocenter/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4585516020/a=4564648020_4564648020/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=hpphotocenter/ (http://www2.snapfish.com/hpphotocenter/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4585516020/a=4564648020_4564648020/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=hpphotocenter/)
The rod is forward and higher than swingarm spools would be so the wheel is off the ground only about 1 inch, but that will work. The bike is not going anywhere. The 2X4 visible on the other L. side allows me to balance the bike upright on the kickstand so both sides of the swingarm engage the bar at the same time and you can keep the prongs close to the swingarm that way to, to minimize forces on the rod.
-
The front fork stem requires an 8 mm head pin for a triple tree stand. While a machine shop could easily take a 13 mm pin (which is the smallest stock pin I can find) and trim it down to fit, that would involve some money. I think there is a simple, effective, and no-cost way to raise the front wheel of the Zero if you need to replace the front tire for example. Here is how I would do that: First, I would use the rear stand to raise the rear wheel as I have shown. Next, I would place a 2 by 4 under the center frame support but more toward the front. Then I would place any floor jack...a car jack would do...in the center of the 2 by 4 and jack up the bike until the front wheel was off the ground a couple inches. Finally I would place additional pieces of wood , blocks, anything strong really on both sides of the jack out toward the sides of the bike, and lower the jack slightly so there was only passive pressure from the jack on the 2 by 4. Now you have support on each side of the bike in both the back with the rear stand and on both sides toward the front with the 2 by 4 wood plank. This should allow you to remove the front wheel.