- Location
- Stinkwater
I'm thinking about building a monster hitch swing. It's going to mount a Velocirax 7, and I probably won't be trucking around 7 bikes very often anymore but it'll see 4 or 5 pretty frequently I imagine. 100 pound rack, plus up to ~150 pounds of bikes, and they'll be pretty far out there, in terms of leverage. The rack itself is is pretty solid when it's in a factory hitch, not much bouncing. I'd like to build a hitch swing that adds an absolute minimum of flex to the system.
The Summit hinge looks pretty beefcake, I don't see much else out there with a 2" spindle. Can I improve it? I'm imagining a bolt-on bracket over the top that puts it in double shear. I think the bearings will tolerate this, assuming the arm is well clamped, but should I be considering a bolt and bushings instead?
I'm envisioning a solid landing pad for the arm with a beefy-beefy Destaco-style latch. Maybe two of them, one to clamp the arm down against the landing pad and one to clamp it back against the body of the hitch swing. Another option would be to use a great big bolt through the arm, but that might be extra hassle without much improvement over the latch?
I would try to incorporate an integrated stabilizer like this
...it's what the Velocirax uses and it keeps it pretty stable. @frieed and I retrofitted one of these to a previous rack and it worked well there too until I stripped the threads - I'd use the beefiest threaded rod and highest quality nut I could find on this version. I would perhaps drill a hole to the bottom of the hitch and weld a nut over it to add a bolt? I don't think that would be overkill.
I would use 2.5" 1/4 wall hitch tube for the body and the arm, and 1/4 (or 3/8?) sheet for the brackets and gussets. And then on top of all that, when the thing is loaded down with bikes I would run a couple of the least-stretchy straps I could find from the top of the Velocirax back to the roof rack on the truck, just for extra insurance.
As a Certified Bootyfab Creator, I don't have any way to estimate the actual forces on this thing and I really don't wanna spread $10,000 in bikes across the freeway. I'm aiming for over-built. Am I overbuilding enough?
The Summit hinge looks pretty beefcake, I don't see much else out there with a 2" spindle. Can I improve it? I'm imagining a bolt-on bracket over the top that puts it in double shear. I think the bearings will tolerate this, assuming the arm is well clamped, but should I be considering a bolt and bushings instead?
I'm envisioning a solid landing pad for the arm with a beefy-beefy Destaco-style latch. Maybe two of them, one to clamp the arm down against the landing pad and one to clamp it back against the body of the hitch swing. Another option would be to use a great big bolt through the arm, but that might be extra hassle without much improvement over the latch?
I would try to incorporate an integrated stabilizer like this
...it's what the Velocirax uses and it keeps it pretty stable. @frieed and I retrofitted one of these to a previous rack and it worked well there too until I stripped the threads - I'd use the beefiest threaded rod and highest quality nut I could find on this version. I would perhaps drill a hole to the bottom of the hitch and weld a nut over it to add a bolt? I don't think that would be overkill.
I would use 2.5" 1/4 wall hitch tube for the body and the arm, and 1/4 (or 3/8?) sheet for the brackets and gussets. And then on top of all that, when the thing is loaded down with bikes I would run a couple of the least-stretchy straps I could find from the top of the Velocirax back to the roof rack on the truck, just for extra insurance.
As a Certified Bootyfab Creator, I don't have any way to estimate the actual forces on this thing and I really don't wanna spread $10,000 in bikes across the freeway. I'm aiming for over-built. Am I overbuilding enough?