Making the Decision Back in the fall of last year I was scanning through another edition of Princess Auto's mini sales catalogue (that comes inserted with our daily newspaper) when I came across an item that immediately caught my interest: a motorcycle table lift. Listed as a new addition, it was being introduced for $100 off its regular price of $599 Cdn. Although I already have a simple bike lift (click to see picture), that works very well for many tasks, it does have some shortcomings. I found that the lift actually interfered with certain types of maintenance work, and was unusable for bikes with under slung exhausts. It excels however, when wheel removal is required. With old age starting to attack my joints, I figured a large elevated platform to work on all our bikes would soon be a necessity rather than just a luxury. Still, it was a lot to invest just to keep me from kneeling or lying on the garage floor. After a week of debating the pros and cons of making the purchase, I finally came to the conclusion that I not only wanted this lift, but that my habitually aching back demanded it. That's when I learned that Princess Auto had sold all seven of its lifts within an hour on the first day of the sale. The staff had no idea when more lifts would become available. Over the winter I searched the web for other table lifts. I found quite a few sites advertising them, and even a couple in Canada . Although most of the products I found looked of better quality than what Princess Auto offered, the prices quoted were also higher. With one exception, there seemed to be nothing out there that would not cost at least a grand (including exchange rates and shipping), a figure that I (and my family budget) could not quite justify spending.
That exception was from the Harbor Freight company. In fact, the picture of the table lift on Harbor Freight's web site looked to me to be exactly the same as the one from Princess Auto's advertisement. This was of particular interest since I'd been reading posts on various biker forums about the Harbor Freight product. In every post I read, the comments were essentially the same: the lift works, couldn't build one any cheaper, and what took them so long to get one. This Time I'm First in Line Spring finally returned and I was once more flipping through the latest Princess Auto mini sales catalogue. Suddenly within the pages I saw it; the motorcycle lift was back and at the same price as before. Not having to go through another decision process of should I or shouldn't I, I immediately called the store to reserve a unit for myself. Now all I had to do is pick it up. At first I was just going to take out the seats in my Astro van and load the lift into it, but thankfully I decided to dig my trailer out of a snow bank and use it instead. Had I taken the van, I would probably have torn up the interior carpeting. The lift comes packed in a wooden crate and weighs 300 lbs plus. It came out of Princess Auto at the end of a fork lift, and was easily loaded into the trailer. At home, it was a little harder to take out. Since my son and I had to carry it to the garage, I grabbed my hammer and took apart the wooden crate to lighten our load. In my haste to unveil my new lift, I accidentally missed my target and connected with part of the platform. The steel bent and some bright yellow paint flaked off. Obviously powder coating was not used. Various curled warning stickers clung desperately to the metal, and the one proudly proclaiming China as the country of manufacture just fell off. Fortunately these were not omens of things to come. Once out of the crate, we easily moved the various packaged parts and lift separately. The main body of the lift comes preassembled; only the lift wheels, ramp, wheel vise assembly and tie-down u-bolts require installation. I created a PDF of the Owner's Manual which basically describes the assembly, operation, maintenance, and parts list.
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