Saturday January 6, 2018 Guerneville CA.
Making the motorcycle template
Last night I’d found a cardboard box to cut out some motorcycle wheels and a board to use for the frame. I measured my brother’s motorcycle which was in the garage to get good specs. I stapled the wheels to the board and I had a motorcycle template.
I figured a motorcycle template would help a lot to visualize just how this thing was going to work and help get some more accurate measurements as it’s easier to cut wood than metal and less costly too.
Tried it on the original carrier
Here’s the cycle template just thrown on the old carrier just to see before taking it apart and remaking it.
Here’s the cycle template in the sorta up position, just to see.
Remaking the carrier
It didn’t take long to figure out I needed to remake the levered lift carrier as it was too sloppy. I need to get measurements for the metal so things need to be a bit better constructed for that.
I remade the levers longer and remade the mount on the van’s trailer hitch, extending the base out a foot from the ball hitch hole. I decided to do away with the ball and use a three quarter inch bolt instead to mount it. I want to be able to swivel the mount a bit to maybe get into the back door. If I can’t get into the back door, I will have to drop the carrier to it’s down position to do it, but it would be nice if I can at least get my arm in there to mostly adjust the fridge as it’s only manual propane.
This is the remade unit
Here’s the remade unit with the cycle in it in the down position. I can see the engine mount 2×4 is too long and hits the ground too soon not letting the unit hit the ground and the front wheel of the bike is dropping into the lever’s too far which I can fix.
Adjusted and rechecked
So I cut the bike mount block off so the unit would sit on the ground better and checked it again. I could see I needed a hinged plate for the bike to mount to which would also lift the bike up as the carrier lifted up.
Looking fairly good in the up position
Now if you didn’t know what I was talking about before this photo should explain how I want the motorcycle mounted as to not block lights and the license plate.
Mounted like doing a wheelie
I may have to get a gel filled battery, otherwise the bike is just in the same position a person assumes when doing a wheelie, so there shouldn’t be any problems with fluids leaking during transport.
I still have to make the cycle hinged mount plate which I plan to do.
A bike would expand my exploring a lot
I’m still having my doubts about whether I should make this or not as it sometimes seems a bit awkward. However if I can figure out a way to carry a bike on the van, it would really change my way of life traveling around and get me out into places I otherwise wouldn’t get into at my age.
Might be doable
So I will continue working on the design for now and see what I can come up with. So far it seems like this thing might be doable.
That pretty much took up all day. When it started to cool down I quit and went in and that was it.
