How to support bike - Need to remove front/rear tires and forks

[tophog]

I need to remove front/rear tires to replace and since I have a leaky front fork seal I'm going to have front forks redone by GP Suspension with Eibachs. So if I want to do all this at once which is what I prefer how do I support the bike? I don't have one of those home-made pipe supports and have always just lifted the front under the header (yeah, I know some would shoot me but I've done this for years on various bikes and never had a problem).

Would bike supported by center stand and under header be ok or too unstable? I have one of those ATV stand/jacks too but not sure if it will work on the FJR as I've used it for years on the Harley. The bike will be OOC for about a week waiting on the forks ...perhaps a few days earlier.

 

[BkrK12]

Just finished doing exactly the same thing. I used the centerstand and a floor jack, placing a piece of 1 X 8 pine between the floor jack and the header tubes. Make the piece of wood long enough so that it spans all four tubes. It'll sit there for a long time, as long as you don't crash into it.

As an added tip, run the back tire up onto another piece of wood and place a third piece under the centerstand legs when you lift it. Pull the piece out from under the rear tire and now you have extra clearance to get the tire and wheel out from under the rear fender.

 

[tophog]

Awesome, thank you. I'm glad to hear it's been done successfully. Knowing my luck you may see another post by me next week asking how to take dents out of a gas tank, where to purchase new body panels, etc. Will warn my 13 yr old not to mount it

Just finished doing exactly the same thing. I used the centerstand and a floor jack, placing a piece of 1 X 8 pine between the floor jack and the header tubes. Make the piece of wood long enough so that it spans all four tubes. It'll sit there for a long time, as long as you don't crash into it.

As an added tip, run the back tire up onto another piece of wood and place a third piece under the centerstand legs when you lift it. Pull the piece out from under the rear tire and now you have extra clearance to get the tire and wheel out from under the rear fender.

 

[03HiYoSilver]

You can also make this Portable Stand:

https://www.fjr1300.info/howto/frontstand.html

 

[tophog]

Thanks. Yes I saw that and is what I referred to in the initial post as "homemade pipe stand". I'll definitely make one of those soon but need to get forks to shop tomorrow.

You can also make this Portable Stand:

https://www.fjr1300.info/howto/frontstand.html

 

[wfooshee]

Jack under the headers is perfect. You'll want to put the centerstand on a 2x6 or something to raise the rear wheel, which will make it tough as hell to deploy the centerstand. What I do is back the bike onto some boards so the rear is sitting higher than the ground, then put the board under where the centerstand will be, and deploy the centerstand on the board. Helps to have a buddy to steady the bike during this. Then when you raise the front with the jack you have more room under the rear wheel.

 

[Aasland]

I've done that too BUT I don't trust the POS craftsman lift to stay up, so I jammed an axe handle into the lift scissor parts as a "safety" stopper.

 

[tophog]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I got the front/rear wheels off last night as well as the forks and dropped everything off this morning. Since I was at Lowes last night I did buy the pipes to assemble the stand and ended up using that ...as well as a jack under the headers just in case ... not much pressure on headers though. Pipe has gone up ... cost me $55 for all the pieces ... 3/4".

 

[Good2Go]

Would bike supported by center stand and under header be ok or too unstable?

I used the centerstand + jack under the headers, plus a second jack to support the swingarm and lift it high enough to drop the shock out the bottom...it's been sitting like this for a week and is plenty stable, IMO:

 

[FJRBluesman]

IMO this is the most solid and robust way to do it, for tires only.

I then did this to get my forks redone, but with the rear wheel on.

 

[tophog]

This is what I ended up with. New rubbers on today and just waiting to get forks back from GP Suspension.

 

[LAF]

This is what I ended up with. New rubbers on today and just waiting to get forks back from GP Suspension.

Nice job! Bet your pretty anxious for those forks to show back up.

Curious on the stand could you buy it all threaded and to size? There was a time I could cut and thread pipe but not at this point in my life. I also park on, and use a lift in my carport so I would need to span that 48" plus a little more for clearance.

Those tires look sweet sitting to go on also.

Very nice job.

 

[tophog]

Thanks. I'm anxious yes but since it seems like it has rained non-stop for the last 8 months here in Oregon I likely won't be riding in the near term. At least the bike provides me something to do.

The stand consists of all threaded pipes/connections. I wanted to do 4' 6" high like the original I saw on this site but couldn't find any pipe in that length ... it was 4' or 5' so I went 5'.

The OP thru in new tires with the bike purchase. He had a new Metzler Sportec M-3 for the front and some hidious Metzler RaceTec K2 for the rear that was about 4 years old and very soft. I used the front tire and bought a new Michelin Pilot Road 2 for the rear.

Nice job! Bet your pretty anxious for those forks to show back up.

Curious on the stand could you buy it all threaded and to size? There was a time I could cut and thread pipe but not at this point in my life. I also park on, and use a lift in my carport so I would need to span that 48" plus a little more for clearance.

Those tires look sweet sitting to go on also.

Very nice job.