Bike Rack

[Bill]

Ed -

That's a nice piece of work! And the swing tongue probably made it a bit more challengig than otherwise. I assume there was some welding involved?

Bill

[trailbiker]

I agree, Nice Work! Can you open the trailer after you fold the arm on the rack down or do you have to remove it? Only downside is see is you could be adding 75 to 100 lbs to your tongue weight.

[eddugo]

The rack has to be removed to pull out the front slide. It attaches with 2 pins under the hoops for the bike tires and the front is held to the tougue by the bolt that holds it in place in the hitch receiver. Yes, there is welding. I welded clamp on pins that go on the back of the rack and also the sockets they fit into. I also welded apiece of angle iron to the onque to catch the front 1 1/4 square tube that would go in a receiver. The angle is welded ahead of the swing hitch so it swings away with the coupler. I posted more construction pics on another thread somewhere on this forum. All welding was done with a Lincoln wire feed. The 1 1/4" to 2" hitch adapter rides in my tool box and it takes 2 minutes to reinstall so I can use the rack in the receiver on my TV. I tow with an F 150 and use a Anderson Hitch so the extra 100 pounds draw weight doesn't matter.

[LoveToCamp]

"nice piece of work". Uh, Bill, that is an understatement!

A very impressive piece of work! Multiple welds, receivers for support pegs, retaining pins, and a double-elbow bend job on the 1¼" square pipe. Very nice engineering, and the weld I looked at looked pretty good. Much better than my attempt with a wire-feed welder.

Ed, I am impressed! Good solution for a common problem, but one that most of us won't attempt.

[eddugo]

I may be getting yoo much credit here - this is what I started with:
http://www.amazon.com/Swagman-Cross-...ywords=swagman


Bends in 1 1/4 tube were there