...The truck bein' tall... and the scooter been low... brings up that High Centering issue. There's a couple of ways of dealin' with that...
1. Find a dock or high spot to set the Motorcycle ramp on, to cut that angle... What a pain in would be to have to go running around looking for a place I could unload the bike!
2. Spend a freaking fortune and get one of those powered, Motorcycle self-loader setups... nice... but out of my budget for the foreseeable future!
3. Build a long ramp... good... but heavy... unless you can weld Aluminum... which I can't!
and DA DAAAA! Door Number 4! Just suck it up and buy a Factory built, folding, 12' Ramp which really dents the budget, but Should do the trick.
Good Ol' geometry calls for a 10.5 foot ramp +-... and that's figuring a straight Motorcycle Ramp. I opted for the 12' version, shallowing out the attack angle; Plus, the ramp I'm getting is arched. Having it arched takes out some more of the approach angle... so, again, I should be in good shape.
Except for oooonnnnne last little thing.
When you ride a motorcycle up a ramp into a pickup bed... and you screw up and get goin' a lil' too quick... there's that cab sittin' there to stop you... CRUNCH! :o)
Buuuut.... I'm gonna be loading sideways... or crossways, behind the cab... So... if I get goin' too quick doin' that... WHooooHoooo! it'll be a quick ride... right off the other side! :o) Genuine, Western Motorcycle Rodeo! Jumping big bikes off of truck beds! :o)
The saving grace... I think... is that my Big Ol' Raider has the torque to just idle up the ramp... so... the ramp is supposed to be here, day after tomorrow, so we'll find out pretty quick whether this is gonna be a ride up or winch up deal.
In the mean time, while I wait on the ramp... I keep thinkin' 'bout some sort of safety blocking that I might could set in place... in the event of too much adrenaline when loading... I may come up with something that don't look too bad. :o) We'll see...
Yesterday, as I was finishing up torqin' down bolts, and putting things back in place I had a pretty good lil' idea... I think.
When I built the Motorcycle carrier on the tail of the fiver... the spare tire carrier for the trailer got removed... leaving the spare floating around, always in the way for the last couple years...
I may have come up with a solution:
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| Fifth Wheel Spare Carried with Truck Spare |
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| Two spares Stacked on Spare Carrier |
I stacked it on the Truck's spare and cranked it up under the truck! It doesn't make any ground clearance issues to speak of... Neat... one more issue taken care of right?
Not quite...
If you look close at the tire stack, you can see the problem... When it's just the truck tire... it sits a lot higher. With two spares stacked, the lower one is a lot closer to the exhaust pipe... that ain't gonna work... but, I believe, that if I reverse the stack... and put the smaller diameter, fiver spare on the bottom... I'll maintain enough clearance...
... I'm gonna give it a try. If I ruin that trailer tire, no matter. That sucker is 10 years old! Yup it's the original spare from when the Eagle was new, never been on the ground and is way too old to rely on... so worth the experiment... and it needs replacement anyway!
More chores to get done today... so I'll get to work now...
Still parked in Nunn and Wrenchin' on the Rig... but Not for long...
Brian
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3 comments:
Guess I'm not a mechanic ... but why not carry one motorcycle on the front of the truck and one on the back of the 5th wheel?
Seems a simple answer to me.
ernie
I've seen some do that... with a small bike, a scooter really on the front...
I suppose the weight would be fairly spread out/balanced OK that way...
I guess having a bike out in front of me on the truck just "feels" weird to me :o) can't really give a good reason why not!
I'm not sure how the trailer tire is cranked up there but I'd make sure that if it is hung on the truck spare tire rack instead of part of the frame, that the rack can support more than twice the weight of the truck tire as you bounce on down the road.
Gary
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