Jack_650
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I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
Posts: 463
Minnesota
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First Steve, in reply to what trailer do I use, I bought on of the "Little Red Trailer" kits from Menards a couple years a go at a fall clearance sale for $80.00. It's a 40"X48" bed, has 8" tires and weighs in at just under a hundred lbs. with a 1/2" plywood floor and a 7' 2"X6" bolted on to put the bike on when I trailer it behind the car. They now are running around $180.00 or so regular price. If you go this route and want to use it behind the bike AND to trailer the bike, don't bother with the bike rail kit that you can buy for it. The rail is way too narrow for the back tire on the 650. It's more for dirt bikes I'm sure. I had to bend the sides out to get it in there. Ugly and not at all elegant, but it works. I've trailered the bike on it on a couple 600 mile trips and a few shorter around town things and it goes just fine. Pick up one of those shaped tube/pipe front wheel stops and bolt it to a 2"X8" and just tie the back tire down to the board itself after you strap it down.
Behind the bike, you don't even know it's there when it's empty. I've yet to pull any real weight behind the bike on it. Soon though as I've got to haul a good couple hundred pounds on it for about 650 miles this fall.
As to making a hitch yourself, I don't know why you don't think you could do it yourself or get it done without plans. I would bet last months paycheck that if you take the pix of the hitch to any competent welder he/she could whip one up for you no sweat. (Did I mention I didn't work last month? I did a 2.4k round trip to N. Carolina and 4k trip to Miami instead. On the 650) I've been giving it some thought in retrospect that you could do one without even having to do any welding. It wouldn't be quite as streamline or graceful but still would be strong and functional. The hardest part would be cutting the two side pieces from 1/4" stock sheet. Although I bet you could use off the shelf metal that was hefty enough and be strong.
Paladin, my only concern with doing the square removable drop down idea would be strength and stability. I had considered a similar approach at first but ended up going for the rigidity of the one piece sides. The one piece 1/4" plate steel doesn't flex much. The whole hitch comes off in five minutes if needed and since I have the horizontal hitchplate bolted on to angle iron welded to the side pieces with four bolts, I can drop that off to get at removing the tire if need be. My intention was to only have the hitch on the bike when I was going to use it but I've not taken it off since it was put on. It looks pretty good, it's great to bungie things to and when there's bags on the back you hardly see it anyway.
I now think that bolts through the rail and fender are probably enough and the U-bolt clamp to the shock mount could be eliminated for ease of construction. I suppose I would go with at least three bolts through the fender to feel safer though. That fender is pretty dang solid. I've had my 180# bouncing along down the highway on it and there wasn't any give to it at all. And, if you've gone the longer shock route, you would have the clearance to put the side pieces of the hitch under the fender instead.
My $.02 worth on the issues.
Jack
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