Fellow Campers
What to do with hauling bikes is always a topic and pending TV type can be an issue. Here is what I ended up with for hauling the bikes along. Hopefully this may spark some ideas for others.
I now have a PU as the TV. I also have a tilting Tono cover that covers up the entire bed rail. PTHutch had a great solution on his which used the bed rails, and fit on a rack behind the cab but his Tono rolls up and leaves bed rail exposed. (I would link it here but can’t find it.) So that option was out for me as I did not want to re-buy the cover. Plus some day a truck cap will arrive.
I already did the TV front receiver on my older Suburban which worked well but did not want to repeat that on the F350. And the rear of the TT has negatives as well. Been there tried that. The inside of the TT is out as my slide about cuts off any walk space when in. The top of the roof on the F350 is just way to high up there...So I ended up with a TT tongue mount. EMAM did a very similar thing on his, see
here
While this bike rack option may not work for everyone, it may for some with the larger campers/TV’s.
Top Rail in Canada actually sells this type of bike rack however it is in the $300 plus range. It is the rack plus the mount.
The actual bike rack I used is my prior
Swagmen double bike rack I allready had with the older camper that use to go on the front of the Suburban. Cost about $130 a few years ago. Looks like this
The metal for the TT frame I had laying around from years ago so no current day money spent here. Paint and hardware from the misc. everything pile of stuff I have. So while there is investment, I did not spend anything new, which helps on these kinds of projects.
In my case a TT tongue mount fit the bill. And again in my case, my TV, TT and WD hitch can handle the extra 100# of tongue weight the 2 bikes and rack add. That combo does not fit everyone. My TT tongue weight is now 1,390# when fully loaded, both bikes and full propane. This comes out to be just slightly over 15% tongue weight per loaded GVW of the TT. As you can see a lot of numbers need to be pre-thought and fall in place to make this option work. I would not recommend this option for any of the 2005 and newer 7,000# GVWR Sunline TT’s that have the A frame tongue issues as they already have enough going on. EMAM's has the final Sunline fix on it. Others may not. However the 8,600# GVWR TT and the 10,000# GVWR TT’s with the 6” wide A frame this should fit on the TT at least.
So here is what I did. I’ll do this with pic’s to cut down on the words.
First is to start out cutting up metal for the frame. To do this yourself your shop has to have metal working tools and such to make this easier, or have a buddy do you a favor.
Then the start of mounting to the A frame.
Then the frame fabrication
Then the test fit
While this fab’ing looks like a lot, there are only 2 pieces I made new. The 3rd squre tube is from the Swagmen rack. This is the parts painted that will be added.
Here it is on the truck ready to roll.
This also has a quick mount setup. I pop 2 pins out and the entire bike rack part comes out and I have the original Swagman rack back. While camping we can put this in the truck receiver and go for a day bike hike in another location. I also take the rack off for storage when not camping to keep the rack out of the weather.
A normal 5/8 receiver type pin on one end.
A wing nut with safety clip in place.
Next to make sure it you can turn and not hit the camper/TV. My hitch setup extends long enough to allow this and the bikes are high enough. Again this needs to be checked.
Here is a side shot so you can see the room between TV and TT.
Now to the full turn. Here are few pics of the same turn.
Here is the just about max I want to go. If I go much past this (about 5 to 8 degrees more) I can break the WD hitch given the right circumstances. This amount of turn does not occur often but I wanted to make sure the rack would not hit and take out a truck tail light.
Once I take the bikes off at the CG, I fold the rack down like this. I can also get into the LP valve cover with the rack on.
And at home I take it off and this is all that is left. This also allows me to take the LP cover off with the mount still on to change LP tanks.
I have used the rack now on 3 camping trips and it works well.
Thank you for following along and hope this helps spark some ideas for others.
John
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