Motor Stand…

Project Blue is my second airhead. I enjoyed Red a ton and Blue is shaping up into a very different and interesting project. I already have another airhead waiting in the wings, and have realized that one aspect of this work that is tedious is manipulating the motor and gearbox while servicing and rebuilding.

This can and is often done by using straps, braces, and muscle to maneuver the motor around. BMW factory tools include a motor stand that some lucky folks have been able to source. Others have devised their own variations on stands to assist. As it seems that I will be doing more of these in the future, I figured I would benefit from investing some time and money into a stand that would work for me.

I considered several approaches using the motor mounting studs and others using the gearbox mounting points. In the end, I opted for the gearbox mounting points since they seem to be better suited for an articulated design. I am taking inspiration from two main sources in this. One is the Workshop Rebuild design which is excellent. That design is similar in a number of ways to the BMW tool. The BMW tool has a lot of articulation and I spent a long time trying to simply hunt one down without success. Looking at the /workshop Rebuild stand, I ran into some concerns with the hinge approach and wanted something that could have more of a “lock into place” design rather than using a peg to hold it up in different positions.

I made several designs using a machined hinge mechanism that incorporated bearings and all of them wound up being over-engineered and expensive to fabricate. In the end, I opted for a design that could be made using simpler hardware and be fabricated using SendCutSend.

The result is a simple design that bolts up to a standard Harbor Freight motor stand acting as an adapter and mounting ring. It can be tilted and locked into multiple positions an also rotated using the Harbor Freight stand. I had it made from .25″ mild steel and am using good hardware from McMaster-Carr. As a prototype, this works great for a first version. I had to drill out the holes for the lock pins, but it works great otherwise.