revtothelimit - motorbike forum

Looking at the above pics, it looks like the wheels will be painted Ford Frozen white, not the diamond white I mentioned in an earlier post.

When you are busy with a project, do you ever think that you would rather be doing something different?
A friend was showing me something on his phone that tells me that Dave Dunlop (FastByMe turbo's) is going to be doing turbo kits for kawasaki ZRX1100's and ZZR1100's. I don't have a clue as to the costs, but I figure the kits will be £2K plus. I could pick up a ZZR1100 for £1000-1500, spruce it up, deliver it to Mr.Dunlop and have a 200+hp missile for £3-4K. If I had not bought the Busa my order for a kit would have been made. Bugger.

Bugger indeed. It is hard to get motivated when you are not into the bike your busy with.

I have an FJR1300, which when in a lazy mood (or in pain due to my knackered false hip) I spoke to a local bike shop to ask, "How much will you charge to do the fork seals, I have the seals etc" £140, he answered. LOL. So by chance I spoke to somebody who recommended another local shop. Off I went with the same question. £20 a fork leg. Which seemed a lot better. With the forks refitted it wasnt long before they started to leak. So I used my Eazirizer to lift the bike, pulled the forks off and noticed that he must have used a chisel to get the seal out on one of them. And then I bought another bike to run around on and I kind of forgot the FJR. There was a gouge in one of the legs and there was no way that they would not just damage a new seal. And this must have been 3 years ago. I decided to fix it so bought brand new fork stanchions, new inner and outter bushes along with seals, oil and even a nice billet fork brace. I rebuilt them lastnight when my Mrs was watching Emmerdale Farm and fitted them this morning. I dropped the lift down, took the FJR off it and parked it up. Now, I have my Eazirizer sat waiting to have the Busa fastened to it so that I can remove the wheels for refinishing and getting a few other jobs done.
I can highly recommend Eazirizers. The make light work of lifting heavy bikes.

https://on-bike.com/motorcycle-lifts/sp ... rbike-lift

Looks like good kit. I use the Abba Skylift,which is a similar lift.

Skub wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 8:31 pm Looks like good kit. I use the Abba Skylift,which is a similar lift.

As far as I can see (and I may very well have missed a trick here), but the Skylift has castors which means the bike (on the Skylift) can be moved around the shed/workshop/garage. I find this function incredibly useful.

mangocrazy wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 8:43 pm

Skub wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 8:31 pm Looks like good kit. I use the Abba Skylift,which is a similar lift.

As far as I can see (and I may very well have missed a trick here), but the Skylift has castors which means the bike (on the Skylift) can be moved around the shed/workshop/garage. I find this function incredibly useful.

Likewise. My Zed lives on the Skylift when in the garage. The two triples are on those little mainstand trolleys,so I can trail them about when they require molesting.

Skub wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 8:58 pm

mangocrazy wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 8:43 pm

Skub wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 8:31 pm Looks like good kit. I use the Abba Skylift,which is a similar lift.

As far as I can see (and I may very well have missed a trick here), but the Skylift has castors which means the bike (on the Skylift) can be moved around the shed/workshop/garage. I find this function incredibly useful.

Likewise. My Zed lives on the Skylift when in the garage. The two triples are on those little mainstand trolleys,so I can trail them about when they require molesting.

That is a great point. In the time I have had the incredibly heavy FJR1300 on the lift it has had to say put exactly where it was. Which has been a proper pain in the thingy. An old mate of mine had the same Eazyrizer lift as mine and welded some plates on the bottom to accept wheels. I think that I need to do the same thing. Having something that moves safely around makes a lot of sense.

If anybody has suggestions for the best castors to take the weight I would be interested to hear about them? I figure that the next bike to be lifted will be my Hayabusa (500 pounds plus at a guess) so the castors would need to be really strong. I can't have anything collapsing under the weight and strain of a big bike.

Dixiethedog wrote: Sat Mar 15, 2025 8:52 am

Skub wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 8:58 pm

mangocrazy wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 8:43 pm
As far as I can see (and I may very well have missed a trick here), but the Skylift has castors which means the bike (on the Skylift) can be moved around the shed/workshop/garage. I find this function incredibly useful.

Likewise. My Zed lives on the Skylift when in the garage. The two triples are on those little mainstand trolleys,so I can trail them about when they require molesting.

That is a great point. In the time I have had the incredibly heavy FJR1300 on the lift it has had to say put exactly where it was. Which has been a proper pain in the thingy. An old mate of mine had the same Eazyrizer lift as mine and welded some plates on the bottom to accept wheels. I think that I need to do the same thing. Having something that moves safely around makes a lot of sense.

If anybody has suggestions for the best castors to take the weight I would be interested to hear about them? I figure that the next bike to be lifted will be my Hayabusa (500 pounds plus at a guess) so the castors would need to be really strong. I can't have anything collapsing under the weight and strain of a big bike.

My first port of call for all that handling stuff is -

https://www.slingsby.com/

Huge range of castors, dollies etc. Mechanical handling is what they were best known for but they expanded a lot.

Dixiethedog wrote: Sat Mar 08, 2025 8:46 am I am not 100% sure how the upholstery paint will last? I have since done a couple of seats with black leather dye, which I prefer, but time will tell. I can easily do something with the upholstery again at a later date if need be.

I was offered a brand new pair of Daytona MX style boots for £50.

Bargain

Apart from having umpteen fluorescent coloured panels in a sort of random crazy paving pattern

Pot of black leather paint sort it (although I left the pink lettering )

However, that wasn't flexing like a seat would.

Dixiethedog wrote: Sat Mar 15, 2025 8:52 am

Skub wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 8:58 pm

mangocrazy wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 8:43 pm
As far as I can see (and I may very well have missed a trick here), but the Skylift has castors which means the bike (on the Skylift) can be moved around the shed/workshop/garage. I find this function incredibly useful.

Likewise. My Zed lives on the Skylift when in the garage. The two triples are on those little mainstand trolleys,so I can trail them about when they require molesting.

That is a great point. In the time I have had the incredibly heavy FJR1300 on the lift it has had to say put exactly where it was. Which has been a proper pain in the thingy. An old mate of mine had the same Eazyrizer lift as mine and welded some plates on the bottom to accept wheels. I think that I need to do the same thing. Having something that moves safely around makes a lot of sense.

If anybody has suggestions for the best castors to take the weight I would be interested to hear about them? I figure that the next bike to be lifted will be my Hayabusa (500 pounds plus at a guess) so the castors would need to be really strong. I can't have anything collapsing under the weight and strain of a big bike.

Comparing photos of the Eazyriser and Skylift, it's obvious that the Skylift was designed with 'movability' in mind, whereas the Eazyriser wasn't. I know I'm stating the bleedin' obvious here, but the point needs to be made. The Skylift covers a significantly larger floor area than the Eazyriser and for the Eazyrizer to be as stable as the Skylift when fitted with castors that would need to be addressed. So the box section base would need to be extended outwards and then plates welded on to the extensions to take castors.

Personally I'd be inclined to buy a Skylift and sell the Eazyrizer on to someone else...

Comparing photos of the Eazyriser and Skylift, it's obvious that the Skylift was designed with 'movability' in mind, whereas the Eazyriser wasn't. I know I'm stating the bleedin' obvious here, but the point needs to be made. The Skylift covers a significantly larger floor area than the Eazyriser and for the Eazyrizer to be as stable as the Skylift when fitted with castors that would need to be addressed. So the box section base would need to be extended outwards and then plates welded on to the extensions to take castors.

Personally I'd be inclined to buy a Skylift and sell the Eazyrizer on to someone else...
[/quote]

That is a fair enough point. But I can weld plates onto the EaziRizer base to fit castors which would be in a locked position when not in use. I could (and would) lower any bike on the lift to a height where the bike wheels are close to the ground, but not on the ground when moving. I would only be moving the lift from let us say the centre of the floor space to the side of the workspace. Two or three foot. My "shed" is 3M X 5M but I have a partion wall that removes about 1 metre from the length and a lathe and milling machine taking up another metre of the floor space. So, my workspace is probably only about 3 metres square. It won't be getting wheeled for miles, more like inches or feet. Plus, if I was able to spin the thing 180 degrees that could be handy.

I have other lift options in the pipeline,so I could well move away from the EasiRizer, time will tell.

But thank you for your input.

Horse wrote: Sat Mar 15, 2025 9:48 am

Dixiethedog wrote: Sat Mar 08, 2025 8:46 am I am not 100% sure how the upholstery paint will last? I have since done a couple of seats with black leather dye, which I prefer, but time will tell. I can easily do something with the upholstery again at a later date if need be.

I was offered a brand new pair of Daytona MX style boots for £50.

Bargain

Apart from having umpteen fluorescent coloured panels in a sort of random crazy paving pattern

Pot of black leather paint sort it (although I left the pink lettering )

However, that wasn't flexing like a seat would.

I also have some really great leather dye. If the paint flexes I will remove it and start again. Or go to Aliexpress and just buy a new seat! You can get them for about £20-30.

Above when I mentioned other lift options in the pipeline, here is my madcap idea.

Shed number 2.
This when I was still building it, so it is not finished in the pics.


And to give an idea of size, here it is with my FJR1300 inside of it.


This by the way is my spraybooth shed. It has an industrial extractor and filters, it is 100% insulated, draft free and has a diesel heater. And it gets hot. Too hot.
I do a fair bit of spraying, but there is a lot of time when I am not spraying. So it becomes a bit of a waste of space. Kind of.

My (stupid) plan.
Cut a motorcyle lift table size hole in the floor, cut the concrete from beneath the shed floor out, shutter it, re-concrete it to a lower level and then fit a bike lift into the hole. But do it so the bike lift table top is level with the remaining shed floor. This would mean the lift would not be in my way when not in use. It could be used in the lifted position as a table for spraying stuff and it could be used as a nice clean tidy warm project assembly shed. I could make as much mess and dirt in my other shed without worries of causing damage to anything that needs to be kept clean.
The pics are not mine, but this is the idea.

Dixiethedog wrote: Sat Mar 15, 2025 10:46 am

mangocrazy wrote: Sat Mar 15, 2025 9:53 am Comparing photos of the Eazyriser and Skylift, it's obvious that the Skylift was designed with 'movability' in mind, whereas the Eazyriser wasn't. I know I'm stating the bleedin' obvious here, but the point needs to be made. The Skylift covers a significantly larger floor area than the Eazyriser and for the Eazyrizer to be as stable as the Skylift when fitted with castors that would need to be addressed. So the box section base would need to be extended outwards and then plates welded on to the extensions to take castors.

Personally I'd be inclined to buy a Skylift and sell the Eazyrizer on to someone else...

That is a fair enough point. But I can weld plates onto the EaziRizer base to fit castors which would be in a locked position when not in use. I could (and would) lower any bike on the lift to a height where the bike wheels are close to the ground, but not on the ground when moving. I would only be moving the lift from let us say the centre of the floor space to the side of the workspace. Two or three foot. My "shed" is 3M X 5M but I have a partion wall that removes about 1 metre from the length and a lathe and milling machine taking up another metre of the floor space. So, my workspace is probably only about 3 metres square. It won't be getting wheeled for miles, more like inches or feet. Plus, if I was able to spin the thing 180 degrees that could be handy.

I have other lift options in the pipeline,so I could well move away from the EasiRizer, time will tell.

But thank you for your input.

Good points, well made... If you're handy with a welder and have milling and lathe facilities, then it's a no-brainer to DIY. I also very much like the look of a hydraulic work bench inset into the floor. That takes away almost all of the drawbacks of a fixed work bench. You've also got quite a handy Faraday Cage there...

You've also got quite a handy Faraday Cage there...
[/quote]

It is not so much a Faraday cage, more of an insulation from the bull sh*t. I can't get any radio signal or internet in my sheds as they are so well insulated. Peace from the outside World!!

mangocrazy wrote: Sat Mar 15, 2025 9:53 am

Personally I'd be inclined to buy a Skylift and sell the Eazyrizer on to someone else...

I's the right answer - and I say that as an owner of the big blue Eazyrizer.

Something is ringing in my memory that this generation of Busa suffered cracked subframes, particularly if the stock exhausts were changed...

Beancounter wrote: Tue Mar 18, 2025 6:15 pm

mangocrazy wrote: Sat Mar 15, 2025 9:53 am

Personally I'd be inclined to buy a Skylift and sell the Eazyrizer on to someone else...

I's the right answer - and I say that as an owner of the big blue Eazyrizer.

Something is ringing in my memory that this generation of Busa suffered cracked subframes, particularly if the stock exhausts were changed...

I am probably wrong on this, but I think the early Busa's had an aluminium seat subframe which on the later models was changed to a steel one? I will have to go and have a look to see if mine is alloy or steel.

As I move along with things, to make space, I rebuild the forks on my FJR13 last week. When you refit the internals into the fork bottoms there is bolt that fits from the bottom of the fork leg to hold everything together. On one one leg I fitted a brand new copper washer, which I annealed to make it squashy. And bugger, today I noticed the oil has fallen out on that leg. So, I have ordered a genuine Yamaha set of the corrctly sized copper washers, which should sort it out. Lesson learned. Don't just think that the box of 100 copper washers that you buy from egay will work! The good leg has an annealed original washer in it. But otherwise, I think the bike is MOT ready.

Those fork leg sealing washers are often smaller in diameter than 'normal' washers. They seem to be exactly the same size as the head of the allen bolt/cap head screw that holds them in place...