You're doing it wrong. Or, Critical Review of Haul-Master Hitch Rack

[mr72]

OK, so probably a year and a half ago, a kindly gentleman on this forum named @Goforth gave me what I now know to be the most epic motorcycle hitch hauler of all time, absolutely free. I was in a run of lucky breaks getting free stuff, and this hitch rack was used to great effect to haul two more of my free items around, a scooter given by @Kilroy and another scooter I got from a very nice fellow up in Oklahoma.

This original hitch rack was home-made from the worlds heaviest steel, was at least two feet longer than what was needed for my scooters, and had a ramp made from something like 8mm aluminum channel that was the length of the carrier. If you wanted to put a Gold Wing on this carrier, I'm sure it'd work. The problem I had was that I convinced myself that it was overkill, and that someone else with big bikes should take it, since my 215 lb and 250 lb scooters were just not worthy of its magnitude. But also, my Jeep has a 350 lb tongue weight limit and I am quite certain that heavy carrier plus a 250 lb scooter was way over 350 lb even before you calculate the leverage due to the moment arm. So I did what any naive fool would have done, and traded this carrier for a well-used "Haul-Master" (aka Harbor Freight) aluminum carrier that is about 1/3 the weight.

Side note: I did have one big reason for making this swap, and that's that since I live on a hill, storing that carrier and putting it on and off the Jeep was a literal chore.

I am in no way complaining about getting an even trade deal for this aluminum carrier. It's precisely what I asked for and I am grateful.

But.

So last night mrs72 and I drove to San Antonio from Cedar Park and wound up buying a scooter, this one is like 260 lb. We took the HF carrier of course. Now, you can't use this carrier the way it's intended with a scooter. Turns out, the little things that're supposed to pinch the front tire were installed upside down, so they didn't work at all. Due to the small diameter of the 12" wheels, we had to position the scooter on the carrier so that the rear, with like 70% of the scooter's weight, was way off center. Even after we put like 100 straps on it in every which way, still the result was truly epic swaying and tipping, so much that we wound up driving on the access roads and trying to keep under 45 mph right up until we got to Blanco and I wound up lashing the scooter's grab bar to the Jeep's tailgate-mounted spare tire just to try to keep us from freaking out for the next hour and a half of driving. After that point we did manage to achieve highway speeds without being convinced the scooter was going to get flung off the rack at every bump and we eventually got home after 3 hours of what should have been a 1:45 trip.

OK, so, truly, I should have known better and done this better. There are design problems with this rack which make it a poor choice for those who value peace of mind, but it did eventually get the job done. The number one problem is the loose tolerance in the receiver, so it will rotate probably 10 degrees or more in either direction, and boy does it when there's a 260 lb motorbike on it. There's no good cure for this, but the right beefy "anti-sway" receiver device would likely reduce this problem a lot. I will not use this rack again without adding a good anti-sway device of some kind. The second problem is that whole pin-down-the-wheel design. It's not compatible with scooters with 20-12" wheels, and especially not a Vespa without spokes, but what is essentially a solid wheel. So you are left trying to get the pins to cradle the wheel, and they are not sufficiently adjustable to allow this for a scooter. As a result, the only position we could get the scooter to fit was one where it was horribly lopsided in terms of weight bearing. The other design flaw is that the tie down points are not far enough from the center of the rack to create a meaningful lateral force to keep the bike from tipping, which is why I had to lash the scooter to the Jeep's spare.

Knowing what I know now, I can make some modifications to this rack to accommodate scooters, since I will only ever be using it for scooter transport. The current plan is to create a bit of a miniature, movable wheel-chock for the front wheel, and permanently move the rear "pins" so they will cradle a scooter rear wheel when the front wheel is on the chock. I also need to add a steel bar up front to tie the handlebars to to keep the wheel from turning and keep the bike from tipping, and probably a similar rear tie down situation so a scooter's grab bar can be lashed down and keep it from tipping. Since a scooter's wheels won't dip far enough in between these rails for it to hold upright like a dirt bike would, some other solution is required.

Oh, and I plan to go through this entire thing and replace and upgrade all of the fasteners with plated grade 8 fasteners, nylock nuts, heavy washers, fit every bolt to near interference fit to holes, and then torque the snot out of it. A lot of the flexing was due to literally slipping of surfaces with insufficient clamping force between them.

Anyway, I should still wind up with a sub-50 lb rack that will hold and carry a 260 lb scooter no problem if I can sort out these issues. For those of you considering one of these HF hitch racks, beware that there are issues that might pop up and you should consider how to deal with it.

The truth is last night when coming home with a totally unknown, new to us scooter on the back, we were one scary bump away from yanking the scooter off and having me ride it all the way home in the dark of night without most of my gear... I just brought an open face helmet, enough for a residential test ride. But the risk of losing the scooter was high enough that we seriously considered this. If I had brought along my jacket and FF helmet, we would have done this immediately.

 

[JT]

Secure the bike to the carrier using whatever straps you feel nec. Once secured to the carrier add two straps from the ends of the bumper to each end of the bike as in the pic below. The straps do not need to be super tight, they will work against each other to take the sway out of the hitch. It is important to secure the straps as high as possible on the bike. Try it it does work.

 

[mr72]

The tire may be in the way for that to work. But I'll definitely try something like that next time.

 

[mcman56]

Mine has a bolt on clamp that clamps the 2" bar to the receiver. The clamp is two L shaped brackets maybe 3/8" thick and mounts with a bolt through the 2" bar. It must be intended as sort of a very stiff spring to help steady the 2" bar. I recently purchased the carrier so this could be a new feature. I also run the tie downs on the truck side to holes by the receiver not the carrier. Like this, it is pretty steady with a 250 lb TL250. Still, the design is not particularly robust and its primary or maybe only attractive feature is light weight.

See step 8 on page 4.

https://manuals.harborfreight.com/manuals/62000-62999/62837.pdf

 

[mr72]

Mine has a bolt on clamp that clamps the 2" bar to the receiver. The clamp is two L shaped brackets maybe 3/8" thick and mounts with a bolt through the 2" bar. It must be intended as sort of a very stiff spring to help steady the 2" bar. I recently purchased the carrier so this could be a new feature.

Yeah mine doesn't have that part. But the problem is not flexibility of the 2" bar. It's slack between the bar and the receiver. I think it needs some anti-sway device just to keep the thing from twisting due to this slack.

The "straps" on the top of the thing should limit the flexion of the rails once the scooter is in place.

I plan to make a number of modifications to this thing before I use it again. Mostly I need to work out the "pin" arrangement and the front wheel clamp so it can be made to work with 10-12" wheels rather than the 17-21" that it's designed for, and also so it correctly positions the scooter's center of gravity over the center of the carrier. Knowing what I know now, and with both scooters I plan to use with this rack right now in my own garage, I think I can create fixtures and tools to securely haul either scooter on this rack.

What I really need is a bar that hooks to both handlebars to attach the handlebar straps to, and a similar bar that on either scooter will attach across the luggage rack that's sufficiently long for the straps to clear the cowls. In the past I also have been known to put a strap right around the entire carrier and over the floor board of the scooter to hold it down in that spot. It's all just a matter of me not being nearly prepared enough for that hair-raising drive home from San Antonio.

 

[mcman56]

The clamp does take out the play between bar and receiver. One end clamps on the receiver and the other end on the bar basically clamping the two together.

 

[mr72]

The clamp does take out the play between bar and receiver. One end clamps on the receiver and the other end on the bar basically clamping the two together.

Hm. Well those parts are not on my rack. I will have to consider if I can add a modification to do the same thing.

 

[CleatusJ]

IF your hitch has open ends on the cross bar, you could use an ell made of tubing to turn out to under the rack as extra support.

 

[HiSPL]

If you never plan on disassembling the aluminum parts I’d say use these brazing rods instead of bolts:

Low Temperature Aluminum Welding Rods, 8 Piece

Amazing deals on this 8 Pc Low Temperature Aluminum Welding Rods at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

I’ve had extremely good experience with these things. They are very strong and only require a propane torch to use. Sometimes aluminum wicks away the heat faster than a torch can put heat into the joint, so I’ve had to use two torches a couple of times, but that has literally been the only downside. These brazing rods are extremely easy to use.

 

[mr72]

I must be dumber than I thought I was. For the life of me I can't see how those little L braces could do anything to stabilize the rocking of the receiver. Seems they would more likely just be able to prevent fore/aft shifting or get the rack to sag less under load, but rotational rocking is the problem, and without improving the tolerance of the bar into the receiver or using a convention receiver anti-sway clamp, I don't see how I could change that.

At the moment, my plan is to try to reduce the moment arm on the rack by aligning the center of gravity of a scooter over the center of the rack. I think that, along with a regular anti-sway clamp, would probably fix the rotational rocking. Then I just need to add/improve tie-down points and probably relocate those pins & front tire clamp in the rack so that it'll correctly hold a scooter tire and Bob's your uncle. Seems pretty clear this rack is really best suited OOTB to work with lightweight dirt bikes, but a scooter without 18/21" spoke wheels and without foot pegs to tie down just doesn't fit.

 

[ntklr650]

These issues are what has kept me from buying one of these racks. I would prefer to design and build one but then it would be too heavy to use on a regular basis and cost more then I would want to spend. We ended up getting a utility trailer and don't have much need anymore.

If I was to build one, I would want to make it fold up to store on the back of the motorcycle. That way I could ride to buy a vehicle outside of the metromess and drive it home with the bike on the back.

As far as sway goes in the hitch. It's to bad you could not copy bike racks that have a wedge that you tighten to make it firm. I bet the overall weight of a motorcycle would be to much for that to be effective but it's a cool design.

 

[mr72]

As far as sway goes in the hitch. It's to bad you could not copy bike racks that have a wedge that you tighten to make it firm. I bet the overall weight of a motorcycle would be to much for that to be effective but it's a cool design.

This is how regular anti-sway devices work. It's a wedge. I think it'd work fine. Also what would work would be something like an eccentric receiver pin that you could crank down to mash the lower inside surface of the receiver tube against the drawbar, kind of clamping it down so it couldn't pivot. IDK, in the long run my barely-used utility trailer is better for this kind of thing, but with something as tall as a motorcycle on it, it's not like it's that stable anyway.

 

[gixxerjasen]

My unexpected issue with these style hitch haulers is how high the dang handlebars get when you are trying to push it up there. Not an issue for some folks, but for those hobbits like me, it gets really hard to push the bike when you've got it almost where you need it to be.

 

[mr72]

My unexpected issue with these style hitch haulers is how high the dang handlebars get when you are trying to push it up there. Not an issue for some folks, but for those hobbits like me, it gets really hard to push the bike when you've got it almost where you need it to be.

Yeah, not just that, but the ramp is a lot steeper than you might expect. I think if you're putting it on the back of a midsize sedan or a 90s compact pickup it would be a very different experience than a modern full size truck or my Jeep with 2" lift and 33" tires.