Newbie here. Still brainstorming and shopping for my bus. This will be my residence and I intend to take my beloved BMW R90S along. I’ve looked at hydraulic lifts but wondered if anyone had moved the wheelchair lift to the rear and modified it for a motorcycle. I have the welding skill but have never really inspected one of these lifts.
The platforms vary in width, for different door openings. And they're about 52" long (front to back). We have 3 of them, both Ricon and Braun. All of ours are rated for 800 pounds, so I think that's pretty standard.
I have seen many large motorbikes on them and as rossvtaylor has stated rating at 800lbs. I expect that is 800lb SWL and with it being for passenger occupancy I imaging there is a very generous safety margin built in there.
Good luck with the project and send pics.
Regards
Agreed on the rating. Anything that's used to move people will have a safety factor of at least 1.5 or 2. I would bet you can move 1000 to 1200lb with the lift no problem.
That said, most any vintage BMW bike should be sub-500 lbs all day long so you're plenty good on the weight from what I can see.
I carry a full sized V-star 650 in the back of our Vista short bus
I indeed modified the wheelchair lift slightly and I easily deploy and stow the bike with it
it was one of the things I was looking for when bus shopping and ended up with our 7 window vista
our lift is 800lb rated and 1000lb test rated..
V star weighs just slightly under 500lbs
I load it aft wheel on the lift, and the front wheel on the "extension " I made.
I used some of the wheelchair tracks in the bus I cut out and made an extension to the ramp so the front tire is held level. This extension is the same width almost as the ramp and it slides INSIDE the OEM ramp and stores itself there when not being used.
To use it I deploy the ramp out until it unfolds, then I slide out the extension and attach it to the side of ramp lip with a bolt on each side.
It works great. Considering the "leverage" effect I am still within limits. It will lift the bike AND me without straining... however I usually run the bike up and down by itself. Then I just roll it back into the bus.
We also carry a KE100 on the custom hitch/bikerack/onan holder
so yeah an 800 lb lift can safely lift I'd say a 500lb bike. Anything more you're starting to get out of the comfort zone when you consider the additional weight from leverage with the front wheel out farther
My bus has a rear handicap lift. I have a folding ramp that is for loading bikes in the back of pick up trucks. As both the handicap lift and the ramp have holes in them (diamond mesh pattern on the lift and slots on the ramp), it was very easy to lower the handicap ramp, bolt the ramp onto the lift (the lift is not long enough to reach the front tire) and lift the bike in.
you'll need to extend the platform with a fold over. At 475lbs, weight won't be an issue. But at 52" platform length, you're looking at around 70" from front to rear on the bike.
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I Thank God That He Gifted Me with Common Sense
could some of you post pictures of how you added the extensions to the lifts
do the lifts not have sensors for the small piece that lifts up that tells it that is in place for safety issues?
my lift was working ok and then I lifted a 75lb bike and me with it and now it is not working
I worried about whether the lifts have issues with the weight not being centered etc?
any more input/feedback on using these and the reliability of using the lift like this would be great
thanks
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