Living Room Motorcycle Stand

I had this old Yamaha YDS3 2 stroke motorcycle in my garage that I wanted out. This was my first bobber chop. It took me forever to build it. I broke a ceramic piece off of the generator that I may never find a replacement for it so it will probably never run. It's a 2 stroke and I'm not a fan of 2 strokes so I wasn't in any hurry to fix it. I do however like to look at it. So I decided I would build a stand that would display it over my couch in my living room.

I went to the steel shop and picked up 2"x2"x1/4" thick square tube. It comes in 24' lengths so I bought the whole piece even though I only needed a little over 19 feet of it for the stand. I got the steel shop to cut it for me into three pieces so it would fit in my truck. I don't remember the total cost but I think it was around $80.

I cut the tube so I had two 52" pieces for the main risers, two 28" pieces for the lower legs that rest on the floor, one 36" piece to use as the rear floor support, two 14" upper legs that the bike will rest on and a 5" piece to tie the upper legs and main risers together. I also cut triangles out of 1/4" steel plate I had laying around that I welded in where the 90 degree angles were for support. I also cut 6" or so long pieces out of 3/16" flat bar to be welded on the back side of the upper legs and down the main risers to structurally tie them together.

I built a buck out of wood to help keep the heavy metal tubes in place. I certainly didn't want the stand to be out of plumb. I used nearly my whole arsenal of c-clamps to hold all the pieces together and in place on the final assembly and welding. I added triangle supports to the base section of the stand at the points where the most stress would be found. You can see them in some of the pictures below. The supports on the lower back section of the stand were added to the rear of the 2" tube since that is the area of most stress and first failure. Also added supports to the bottom side of the legs where they meet the rear floor support since that is where the most stress would be found.

Once together I put a stripped down version of the bike on the stand in my garage and left it there for a few hours. It didn't break or fall over so the build continued. I cleaned up the welds, cleaned the metal and painted it white to blend into the walls in my living room. I added non scraping pads to the bottom of the legs and rear floor support and moved the heavy stand into my living room. The lower level of my house is on a concrete slab. I don't have a basement or crawl space.

I brought the bike in, hooked up a strap and used my engine hoist to lift the bike onto the stand, bolted the bike to the stand with the welded tabs on the legs and pushed the stand and bike into place. Then I put my couch in place and tried it out. It's pretty awesome. When sitting on the couch you can't see the bike above you if you are looking at the TV on the opposite wall.

The overall feedback of the bike and stand has been really good. Even chicks seem to dig it.