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[Richard230]

For the past week I have been thinking about how to jack the front and rear wheels off the ground on my Zero, in case I had to remove the wheels or adjust the steering bearings. Although I have a rear wheel race stand, there are no stand spools on the swing arm and the angle of the lower portion of the arm gave me a little pause. But mostly, because I don't have a helper to steady the bike for me while I use the service stand to jack up the rear wheel from behind the bike, I resorted to the method that I used to get the rear wheel off the ground on my GPR-S.

After trying several different methods of using my jack stands, I found a 24" steel car tire iron in my garage and stuck that through the gap in the upper and lower swing arm sections, just in front of the large hole in the swing arm. I then (with the bike on the side stand and me standing on the left side of the bike) stuck one jack stand under the right side of the tire iron and lifted the left side of the bike, while using my foot to slide the jack stand on the left side under that side of the tire iron. With the jack stands adjusted so that they are not too high, the rear wheel comes off the ground and the bike remained stable, balanced on the two stands and the front wheel.

I then got out my hydraulic floor jack, placed a piece of plywood on top of the jack's lifting dish to spread the load across the bottom of the bike and raised the front wheel off the ground. However, you have to position the jack lifting point so that the bike does not tilt to one side or the other.  When lifting using the jack, watch for tilting and if you start to see the bike tilt to the side, just readjust the jack' position.

Attached are photos showing how this works.

[Richard230]

Here is a photo from the left front.

[Richard230]

And here is a photo showing the front wheel off of the ground using the floor jack. Both the front and rear wheels are off the ground about an inch, or so.

[protomech]

I was just thinking of how to raise up the rear wheel this morning, having just replaced the rear tire on my gas bike. I guess I need to find a tire iron..

[trikester]

I was removing the swing arm so this method wouldn't work for that. I just put a motorcycle jack under the rear of the bottom of the bike and it worked fine to raise the rear wheel off the surface and to also allow me to remove the swing arm. I would also do this to remove the wheel, even if I didn't need access to the swing arm.

[Richard230]

Forget my original post and its Mickey Mouse method of raising the rear wheel off of the ground - unless you are in the middle of nowhere and only have two rocks and a truck tire iron handy.   

I just bought a Drag Specialties motorcycle lift and the Zero must have been designed to be raised by this device.  It exactly fits the level area under the belly pan, easily lifts the bike and both wheels off of the ground without tipping to either side or front to rear. The lift has a rubber pad on its top that prevents marring the belly pan, it uses a mechanical screw and scissor mechanism to raise the jack, which I like because it doesn't have a tendency to bleed down, like a hydraulic piston might do.

Attached are photos of the lift that I bought from the Motorcycle Superstore for $150, delivered to my door.  I am very happy with the way it works and its small size when closed, which makes for easy storage.

[Richard230]

Here is a closeup photo.

[Richard230]

And photo of the top of the lift and one showing how compact it is when folded, which not only makes it easy to carry and store, but also easy to slide under the belly pan.

[flar]

I was going to say that Zero sells a stand, but it's $99 and doesn't lift, it just sits there and I guess you have to figure out how to get the bike on it yourself. I guess it's nicer than a cinder block, but it does have a nifty tray for holding tools(?) or a charger.

The Drag Specialties stand looks much nicer (and only $50 more online?)...

[Richard230]

Yes. Motorcycle Superstore is a very large on-line motorcycle accessory operation based in Oregon, which by-the-way, was just merged with another large company called MAG (Motorsport Aftermarket Group).

[RickSteeb]

Rear tire on my '12DS went flat on my way to work last week... Found a wooden spool of wire that was just thick enough to wedge under the right hand side, with the kickstand holding up the left, getting the rear wheel off of the ground.  Then it was down to finding a 6mm Allen wrench to remove the cap from one end of the axle and loosen the two pinch bolts.  Piece of cake!

I like the scissor-jack idea much better, but sometimes you gotta improvise!

[CliC]

Nice find, Richard. I have a larger, hydraulic Craftsman motorcycle jack, but haven't tried it on the Zero. (Actually, the only thing I've used it for is getting a double wall oven up into its cabinet hole. Worked great for that This unit is more compact, and looks like it could be easily raised and lowered with a cordless drill.

I also need to find a soft-side cooler like you have on the back. I'm dying for some storage on my DS!

Corey

[Richard230]

Corey, that seat pack luggage is made by RK, a well-respected soft-luggage company located in Santa Rosa, CA. This pack is a bit pricey, at somewhere around $150, but it is well made and doubles in size by unzipping an expandable upper compartment. I used it to take a lot of stuff to my daughter's home on Easter. My guess is that its capacity is around 30L when it is fully expanded. I have owned that pack for about 10 years and used it on a number of different motorcycles. It has fit and worked well on every one.  It is my favorite piece of luggage for carrying stuff on a rear seat.

The pack hooks to the edges of a motorcycle seat with large metal hooks, but the Zero seat doesn't have enough of an edge for the hooks to work, so I took them off and used the stock straps to fasten the pack under the seat pan and under the wheel well (as the seat isn't long enough to mount the pack so that it does not extend past the rear of the seat).

[CliC]

Yes, Richard, looks like their "Starr III" model. It looks huge in the pic on their site, but unextended dimensions look reasonable at 9w x 12l x 10h. Thanks for the tip. It's about twice as much as the Dowco, and doesn't include a rain cover, but the RKA seems to fit the seat better in the pics, and has a complete "loop-around" option for the strapping as you noted, as well as a scratch-preventer pad.

Corey

[dkw12002]

I wonder if it would be stable enough to replace the rear wheel? I mean could you crank on the axle bolt? Seems like you would need a swingarm stand to do that.