Well, I finally put the finishing touches on my one man engine removal/install cart. It came out nice and works quite well. The base came from an old shopping cart I found laying in a ditch out in the country. It wasn't a full size cart but rather one of those smaller half carts. It proved to be the perfect size, low enough to roll under a 650 frame on the centerstand but large enough to hold and support the motor. I cut the top basket portion off, lowered the handle, and added a shelf for the motor to sit on .....
I assembled a rolling chassis from spare parts to use for final testing. I expected this to reveal some little flaws, which it did, but it also showed me a major error in my design. I originally built the thing to come in from the left side. Most of the overhead 650 engine pickers and hoists I'd seen were set up this way. Well, for my 2 arm ground based set-up, this just didn't work. What I failed to notice or realize is that the 650 motor is quite a bit wider on the right side compared to the left .....
It turned out to be darn near impossible to wiggle that wide right side of the motor through the frame from the left side. So, I had to re-fab much of the cart so it would come in from the right side. I also needed to thin down the lift brackets, mostly the front one, where they attached to the motor.
The lift arms and the pivot bar they rotate on are solid steel bar stock. Everything's adjustable, either by rotating and sliding or by all-thread adjustment. Both ends of the pivot bar adjust up or down individually. The holders for the bar pivot on top of the all-thread supports .....
A section of the shelf was cut out so a little bottle jack could be positioned under the installed engine to lift it a bit and help get the long bottom bolt through .....
Next problem was how to hold the engine in the lifted position so the stand could be pulled or installed on the bottom. That was solved with simple little hooks made from 1/4" rod. Another problem that surfaced was that if lifted high enough, the weight of the motor would slide the lift bars back down through their holders. That was solved with little pipe sleeves w/ set bolts .....