Didn't think we needed a new jacking up the front end thread here so here's my noob K16 owner report on how I (successfully) accomplished it for the first time today.
Not having a paddock front end lifter thingy I decided to take the jack it up with a small piece of 2x4 under the front of the oil sump approach. Once I took the little plastic skid plate off of the front of the oil sump the front of the sump did look quite sturdy but, not wanting to risk damaging my new to me toy, I took inspiration from the post where someone put bags of rock salt on the back end but instead used three 60 lb bags of "tube sand" that cost $7 each at the local ACE hardware store. I figured 180 lbs is what a decent sized pillion weighs so there wasn't much risk involved.
I put a towel down to protect the seat. It's a stock seat that I'm having Russell-ized next week so I really wasn't too concerned about damaging it but once I have it Russell-ized I'll probably use a pillow as well in the future to evenly distribute the weight and protect the seat better.
Once I had 180 lbs on the back of the bike it still seemed very stable on the center stand and when I tested it only took maybe 25-30 lbs of force to lift the front wheel off of the ground by standing in front of the bike and lifting so I was sure the necessary force from the jack on the sump to lift the front end would be darned pretty small.
I do have any almost new 2-ton hydraulic floor jack but I know that hydraulic jacks can
"leak" and ever so slowly go down if you let them sit for a while so I borrowed the mechanical scissor jack from one of my cars and used that instead just to be sure that the bike would stay at the same height while I had the front wheel off.
So here's what it looked like when I left and also when I got back from the shop later in the day after having the new tire mounted:
(The reason I took the right exhaust can off is that I'm also changing the final drive gear oil and figured life would be easier with that out off the way.)
Conclusion: This was probably overkill and I could've used less weight or maybe none at all but I must say that it did give me complete peace of mind that the bike would still be stable and standing with minimal pressure on the front of the oil sump when I got back from having the new tires mounted. The jacking technique also makes putting the front wheel back on very easy since you can jack it up so that the tire is just leaves the ground. And, since the wheel comes off to the right there's no need to mess with removing or re-installing the ABS sensor.
Monday I'm off to California to get my seat Russelli-zed and burn up my new tires taking a spin on CA 58 (one of my favorite roads) and then back up the coast!