So, a few trailers ago my wife decided we needed a bike rack. That trailer then was a Montana Mountaineer. It had a thicker wall rear bumper on it than most everything I've seen out on the market today. We went with a Swagman Bumper Rack 4. Here we are 3 trailers later and still using that same rack. Couple of issues though.
1. The bumper on this coach is thin. I did have the bike rack mounted to it for a couple of local trips and it worked, but you're not supposed to mount anything to it anyway.
2. The bumper is pretty close to the back wall of the coach. With the bike rack on it, the first bike that's loaded has to be anchored down and tilted at an angle away from the back wall otherwise the handle bar will make contact. Can't have that.
3. With as long as this coach is, 44', having another 3' of bike rack on the back makes getting into sites more fun and that's just more concrete at the house that needs to be added that I don't have the room for.
However, the Northpoint comes from the factory with a read hitch receiver installed. I'm going to utilize that and have to keep within the weight limit of it.
The receiver is lower than the coach bumper, so I had to up step my insert. I used 3/16 thick wall 2" square tube. Stacked a piece on top of the main insert. Back cut the front of the top piece and capped it and the back face of both pieces.
Now, to all you welders out there,.. Yeah, I know, my welds look like crap. But that's what a Metabo and a sanding wheel is for. I know one thing, I ain't had a weld break yet. LOL!
I used a 1/8" wall 4" square tube for the bike rack bumper and put that on my insert that's installed in the receiver. Get it squared, level, plum, etc, clamped and tacked. I pulled it out and back in the garage to glue it all together.
I cleaned it all up and primed, painted, and cleared. and heres the finished product.
Turned out pretty nice for a stupid phone guy. I made the insert as long as possible, but it still wobbles around. Just a little bit in the receiver is multiplied more and more the farther to get from the source. On the front side of the bottom of the receiver, I drilled and tapped for a 1/2" bolt and use that, with a lock nut installed on the bolt, as a jamb nut to put up force, or down force depending on how you look at it, on the insert. I keep an adjustable wrench in the trailer just for this. It's solid as a rock. I can stand on it and bounce and hard as I can and it ain't going anywhere.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a pic of the rack itself installed and right now I really don't feel like venturing outside where it a blamy 7* and clean a foot of snow off it. That's just gonna have to wait till spring.
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