Saturday February 17, 2018 Guerneville CA.
What works and what doesn’t
I got all my motorcycle carrier parts painted yesterday so today was the day to assemble the parts and try it out to see what works and what doesn’t.
Here’s all the painted parts ready to be assembled.
The main part of the carrier is bolted to the trailer hitch with a three quarter inch bolt.
Here’s the unit assembled.
Winch lift
This is the hand winch and bracket that will be mounted on the rack on top of the van.
Like this.
Here’s the unit in the up position.
Let’s try my quad
The other day I realized I could likely put one of my quad runners up there so I tried it to see how it would work out. It was a bit auk word, but I was able to get the quad up all the way, but didn’t get a picture of it. I did find that I would have to redo the mounting bracket to make this work with the quad if I decided to do this with the quad.
Trying Barry’s Honda
About the time I was ready to try it all the way up my brother Barry came by on his Honda 23o dirt bike. Good timing as I needed a motorcycle to try out to see how it would work.
Not looking good
We put his bike on the rack. I didn’t like it. It was hard for one person to get the mount attached and the front tire was getting in the way of the winch strap that would rise it up. Not good.
Discussing the problems
So we sat and discussed the problems thinking of ways around the problems.
What if we mount the bike horizontal instead of vertical? We tried his bike but the mount wasn’t right to hold the bike upright.
Horizontal works
But my cardboard bike worked ok.
Mounting the bike this way solves all of the problems.
I need to remake the main mount that goes under the bike to make this work this way. Once that is done I’ll try it again.
You have to start somewhere
Sometimes things don’t always work out the way we want them to. But building something for the first time one should expect things not to work out the first time. Getting to a finished product requires making something to get started to get to a finished product, or not.
Things didn’t go quite as planned today, but things did go.
That was my day.
I really like to color, green is good! The horizontal mount will work much simpler which is good. Ken
Hi Ken,
I’m hoping it will all come together, maybe it will and maybe it won’t. I’ll soon know for sure.
Bob
My weird question to you with the cardboard cut out in the up position when you finally put the bike up there how are you going to see through your mirror s
Why would it not be feasible to put two brackets on either side of the bumper you could run the bike up on a ramp even so the bike would need to be on about a 40° angle for the handlebars it just seems like there’s a lot of weight way up there as it sits now
Or a one rail bike trailer
Hi Ed,
I think the mirrors would still work. Once the bike is up there the front wheel could be turned sideways to shorten up the bike a bit. The reason I’m doing it this way instead of the other ways is I need to be able to get into my back door to adjust the propane fridge which is not automatic. I also did not want to block my rear lights and license plate so that’s why all the trouble doing it this way. Even thought there will be a bit of weight up there, it’s the same at the hitch point either way. The winch will take up a lot of the weight to make less on the trailer hitch and also keep the thing from bouncing around while traveling.
If it all doesn’t come together, it will all go in the scape heap. I’ve considered a trailer, but would rather not as that’s just another complication, but it’s always there if nothing else works.
Bob
Well, it seems even though it didn’t work right this time, you won’t give up. Bill says your horizontal way should work as you are allowed 8′ width and you’d certainly be able to keep an eye on it. He also says that you remind him of Rube Goldberg, who could make anything out of anything. No offense meant, I don’t know who that is, he wondered if you do. :) Some people are just creative in different ways and you seem to be able to see something and make it work!
Good luck!
Hi Patsy,
Yes, I am determined that’s the way a job gets done. I do know about Rube. He was known for over complicating things that could be made more simpler. My goal is to make things simple when I can. I like to use what engineers call the KISS principal. It’s something one says to one self when designing things. It means keep it simple, stupid. Stupid is the designer as it’s harder to make things real simple as it takes much more thought, but the finished product is always much better if simple.
I’ll keep at it and get it or throw the hole thing in the junk heap.
bob