Motorcycle Lifts/Carriers for RV’s

spotrot

Registered
In case it’s of use, here’s my experience with a few lifts.

First is an excellent one a friend has on his 38†diesel pusher: see Overbilt Lifts motorcycle lifts, the original overbuilt lifts. Custom powder coating.
He drives the bike onto the carrier, puts the kickstand down, installs 4 straps and then turns a button to raise it. Plus it still has a receiver so he can tow a car. Sweet but...
$3,000, another $500 or more to have extra receivers welded to the frame for it, and it’s very heavy.

I’m cheap, I don’t need to tow, and I didn’t want that much more weight hanging off the rear of my 30’ gasser. So one I built a very simple lift for my Hayabusa:

 2 arms (steel square tube) that pivot on the frame behind the rear wheels and extend about 2 feet beyond the bumper.

 An aluminum ‘ramp’ (2 angle pieces and plate)

 One crossbar connecting the arms (originally to jack the lift up; now I’ve installed an electric hoist instead to lift it.

When the rear of the lift is down, the motorcycle can be pushed on, and straps attached.
Then it’s raised with the hoist.
An additional feature is that the whole thing can be removed in 10 minutes.

I switched to the hoist after the aluminum ‘race’ jack slipped out three times - pretty intense when the motorcycle is on it. :banghead: Never get under the lift when it’s being jacked! The jack works OK on pavement -- if you’ve very careful but proved dangerous on sand or dirt. The problem is that the crossbar (jacking point) moves rearward in an arc as it moves up. Plus the jack’s saddle moves in an arc in a different direction. I tried using blocks to do the jacking in two steps and it did make it safer. However, I switched to the hoist because it’s far safer, easier and cost about the same as the aluminum race jack.

pics: bike on lift in down position (the yellow blob is the hoist control)
bike on lift in raised position
bike off lift (yes the lift can be seen in the photo, try harder)

BonBike.JPG


Lift down.JPG


rear.jpg
 
This is a store-bought carrier that I installed on a previous, smaller RV.

The carrier slides into the receiver but I added two arms bolted to the frame to make it more steady.

You have to roll the bike up the ramp, which takes two people even with this 385 lb 650 cc thumper. In sand or in the wet, that gets dangerous. So I eventually switched to a come-along and had my wife winch the bike up (good exercise, I said).

Pics: The ramp angle is less if you build-up the ground end (or park next to a raised area).

I needed to add a block because the angle was too severe causing the bike’s frame to ground out at the upper end of the ramp.

The come-along made it easy to pull the bike up the ramp. Taking the bike off is fairly controllable using the front brake.

block.jpg


build up.jpg


come-along.jpg


ready.jpg
 
I have one for my truck and it works great. My truck is a bit high and would require a 12 ft. ramp. my unit comes in very handy.
 
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