i just picked up my new front stand. i thought i would get the triple tree stand because i could service my front wheel and forks with this one. i picked it up from Parts Canada for $75 CDN through a local bike shop. it is worth noting that this stand cannot be used without a rear wheel stand. with the way this stand pivots into place it is very unstable without the rear wheel being immobilized. i took it home and put it together only to find that because our 250s are slightly smaller bikes, the stand doesn't work properly. the stand comes with 5 different sized dowels which allow the stand to work with various bikes. none of the dowels work as the hole in the triple tree is larger than the largest 18mm dowel. the dowel needs to fit reasonably tightly and be inserted deep enough so the bike doesn't fall off the stand. i thought i would try it with the 18mm dowel and see if i could make it work. the first problem that i noticed is there is a bracket holding the brake lines that is in the way of the dowel fitting into the triple tree.
I have the ABS model and am not sure if it is the same as the non ABS but it is an easy enough problem to fix. you just need to remove the bolt on the bottom of the unit and move the works off to the side.
Once that problem was fixed i inserted the dowel and tried to lift the bike. i noticed that the because the front end of the bike sits lower compared to the bigger bikes, the stand would hit the bottom of the headlight and proceed to lift the bike from that point.
i thought that if i could put a spacer between the triple tree and the stand i could alleviate the problem. i could only get a 1/2" spacer in before the dowel was too short to seat properly. you can see the spacer in the photo and the headlight sitting on the stand. this means that a lot of the weight of the bike is resting on the headlight. i started thinking that i would have to get a custom dowel made so i could use my new stand. with that in mind, i tried to find the right size for the dowel. i started trying to fit various sockets from my tool kit into the hole in the triple tree to find the right diameter. the closest i could find was my 15mm 3/8" socket. then i thought about my 1/2" sockets and the 15mm fit beautifully because the socket widens at the base.
i then noticed that the smallest dowel that came in the set was a 13mm that fit perfectly into the bottom of the 1/2" socket. the only problem was that the dowel was too long so i cut off about 1/2" off it and it fit perfectly.
everything fit together beautifully again and all i had to do was try my new pieces.
now the stand sits about 1' below the headlight so there is no weight on any part except the triple tree.
it took me about 45 min to solve this problem and everything now works great. i hope this can help some of you.
new front triple tree stand
