Center Stand

[Bob_Roller]

Got the center stand today, it was waiting for me at the front door courtesy of FedEx .

Got it installed, a few minor problems, the holes that the spacers that the center stand rides on needed to be chamfered to fit the lip on the spacers .

As altritter mentioned the springs are now about 1cm too short, the loops that are welded to the new stand are about 1 cm longer than the the ones on the old stand .

I'll take the bike into work on Saturday, remove the springs cut them with a high speed die grinder, then pull out one coil of the spring, that should shorten it to the correct length .

Other problem, the old stand had rubber plugs in the tube ends, the left one contacted the frame and acted like the 'up stop' for the stand .

The new stand has a ridged foot plate you step on the raise the bike on the stand no rubber stop .

I looked at the '84 LS, it has the same stand, on the LS there is a tab of sheet metal welded to the frame tube around where the left foot peg bolts through, there is a hole in the tab, and a rubber stop is attached through it .

So it looks like I can fabricate a bracket and use the bolt that holds the left foot peg on, it has about an inch of thread protruding through the nut, should be able to put the bracket on the bolt and add another nut to secure it .

The center stands are identical dimension wise .

What a difference the new stand makes .

If I had known it would work this well, I would have replaced it before I made the first welded repair on it 20 years ago !!!!!!!!!!!

[Barry]

What a difference the new stand makes .

Bob

What do you attribute the improvement to if the dimensions are the same ?

I've got the end stops on my stand built up with weld and I'm at the trial fitting stage, grinding back a little more each time until the stand position seems right.  Currently it's too upright and far too easy to push off the stand and therefore not safe. Easy does it with the angle grinder from now on I think.

[Bob_Roller]

The ridged foot plate that takes the place of the 'tang' that was welded to the other original stand .

You are actually stepping on the end of the center stand tube, instead of 3-4 inches (8-10 cm) farther up the tube with the 'old' style center stand .

[Barry]

Right, maybe I should think about welding a plate weld on while I've got the stand off.

[Bob_Roller]

Just got home from work, moved the R65 to the front of the garage so I don't have to move bikes around tomorrow morning at o'dark thirty .  

Took a good look at the center stand .

With the bike on the center stand, the plate welded to the end of the the tube, is about at a 45 degree angle to the ground with the top forward .

The plate is about 1.75 inches wide and about 2 inches long with the 90 degree corners snipped off .

The plate material looks to be  around 3-4 mm thick .

The bottom edge of the plate is just lower than the tube, just enough to get a couple of good welding beads on there .

[Barry]

Thanks for the description Bob.

With the bike on your new stand which wheel is in the air ?

Mine used to be the back. Now its the front although I'm still grinding away at the end stops a bit at a time. It's gradually getting more stable but I think I should keep going until it sits on the back wheel or at least needs more of a shove to roll it off the stand.

[Bob_Roller]

The front tire is off of the ground .

The contact points on the frame are quite worn as well .

Bike doesn't need much effort to get it off of the stand .

[Altritter]

Bike doesn't need much effort to get it off of the stand .  

Mine, also. Since there's no free lunch, the payback is that it takes a bit more of "step-and-tug" to get the bike onto the stand. But that I can live with, and it has not been a problem.

Having the front wheel off the ground when on the stand is really nice, but I can't be complacent. On the stand, the bike's weight is almost perfectly balanced. It takes very little pressure to rotate the bike on the axis of the stand, putting the front tire on the ground. (A full tank of fuel puts the bike right at the point of equilibrium.) Therefore, relying on parking in gear to stabilize the bike on the center stand is unsafe if the bike is pointed down even the slightest slope. If there's no other way to orient the bike, I use the Brown's side stand with the bike in first gear and accept the risk of an "airhead smokescreen" from the left pipe on startup.

[Altritter]

You are actually stepping on the end of the center stand tube, instead of 3-4 inches (8-10 cm) farther up the tube with the 'old' style center stand .  

Correct. Moreover, with my old stand on the '81, I got much less rotational force from stepping down on the stand, because most of the force generated by my weight was going straight into the ground. (I suspect that the stepdown might have generated a slight counter-rotational force as well.) The foot plate on the later-model stand is far enough off-axis to generate force on the stand itself to aid the rotational force generated by tugging the hand grip and mid point of the handlebar to the rear. Much more efficient.