Front mounted motorcycle rack? Issues?

[o1marc]

Originally Posted by rtdillon1960

I was reading thru this and it is apparent you had already decided to mount the bike up front and was only looking for agreement. Best wishes, I hope it works out well. If it does not, consider these:

1) Shorten bus body by 1 panel set and make a back deck. Make a small pivoting crane to lift it up and down. Put your bike there and enjoy.
2) Modify rear door and load bike into the back of the bus. (Nor a RE?)

Just some suggestions to spark out of the box thinking. Personally I would get a trailer and load them both on it. With the ingenuity and fabrication skills you exhibit you could make then entire load and unload process easy.
I can load and unload my Pickup on a uhaul carrier in about 10 minutes.

BTW, if your fan clutch has gone bad the fan may be spinning at full speed all the time. Lost fuel and torque from that.

Not a bad idea, a 4' deck. Leave the WC lift in the right rear and add one on the left rear. That way you could ride it onto the porch and the ride it off.

[rtdillon1960]

That works for me. Post pictures when you git er dun!

[Shotgun Navigation]

Check out Hyralyft. Lift mounts on back but raises up high enough to still use hitch to pull car or trailer

[snonut]

Lifts – Hydralift Motorcycle Lifts

[WARGEAR]

Overhead headlamps: illegal. No getting over that. Only aimed 50-100 feet out? You can’t see anything before it’s too late!

Possible cooling issues: hopefully you don’t have anything to worry about. I know how nerve wracking driving around a vehicle you can’t trust can be.

Vibration and impact damage:
I’d be worried about your bike taking stone debris and other crap in the road to the sides. Just last week a stone hopped up off a truck going the opposite direction of me and smacked the windshield of the GOV I was driving. Ruined it. The vibration from the engine and the constant bumps along the road could cause some cracking in your aluminum. Keep an eye out for cracks and such.

[reedy]

I have actually done this. I took the front bumper off a 64 GMC 66 passenger 11 rows of seats bus . Welded on 3' x3" by 1/4" angle iron to the front of the frame channels , Welded 6" x 2' Channel iron cross ways to the top of the angle iron. Welded 1 1/2" pipe to top of angle on passenger side tall enough to lift bike. Weld a triangle of 2" pipe to go over the top of the 1 1/2" pipe so that it will spin around. Weld a lifting eye on to the bottom of triangle at long end . use a cheap come a long to lift bike and spin it around to line up with channel . Set the bike down and tie down the forks with straps , compressing the springs . I bolted a 1" flat bar to the Grill mount or radiator mount and twisted it so it fit the front of the bike and u- bolted the front down tube of the bike to the bus as high as possible. then I made 3 trips from Knoxville Tennessee to the west coast, to FL. to NO. to AL. for 8 years. The bike sets a foot or so in front of the grill and the head lights went through the spokes with no problem. all this was with a 650 Yamaha road bike . I could load or unload in 5 min. I kept the come a long and the

[reedy]

Triangle Piece in the bus and never had a problem with over heating The bike has plenty of air holes in it to cool the radiator. The 650 Yamaha weighed about 450 pounds if memory serves. The added steel would only be a hundred or so pounds. There was never a problem with weight. Busses are so over built that it actually made it ride better. Don't worry be happy !

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by o1marc

He says his fan runs hard all the time, no clutch freewheeling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVMN7LmKLYA

[reedy]

Don't know about that . in 64 model vehicles there were no fan clutch fans. If mine was running all the time, I would replace the fan clutch fan.

[HazMatt]

I have SO gotta get me one of these!!!

Originally Posted by snonut

Lifts – Hydralift Motorcycle Lifts

Well, after I've saved up for a scoot...

Thanx for the link: Bookmarked!

[Sleddgracer]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

good advice - thanks

[Jsneeb]

Hey everyone. I just got back into town. 570 miles round trip with the motorcycle on the front the whole time.

Great to report back that everything worked flawless!

The carrier is made from aluminum and bolted on, it weighs very little. Maybe 80 lb total.

The motorcycle was held on and secure as could be. Never shifted, moved or wiggled at all.
Up next I will replace the straps with a permanently affixed chain that will hold the bike via it's frame rather than the straps over the bars.


Cooling was not a problem nearly as much as I thought it would be.

Bus ran at about 200 all day going 60mph. Cooled down to 180 on downhills or when driving slowly.

Pulled the climb up Hwy 6 ( 3700 ft ) comfortably at about 30-35.
Temps creeped up to 210 but I would back of the speed pedal and they dropped back down right away. I actually think that it wouldn't have got hotter than 210 even if I had continued to push it, but there were two lanes the whole way up and no urgency to find out.
I stopped twice on the way up, though I'm not really sure I needed to. I don't have a trans cooler or a temp gauge so I stopped to let the trans cool a bit and give me some peace of mind that I'm not cooking the fluid.

Lighting was fine.
The headlights actually lined up with the spokes of the tire pretty well. I did use my overhead lights after about midnight when there was no-one on the road, and I used them on the road into canyonlands, as it's about 30 miles long and there was no other traffic. I didn't get pulled over, shot at, nor did I blind any other drivers.

I saw more replies to the thread while I was gone. I'm not worried about vibration. The bus is air ride all around and pretty comfortable ride.
Im excited this will work out because a rear mounted solution is not great for my needs.
I'm not concerned about bugs hitting my bike, nor rocks. On the trails we rode I dumped the bike at least 20 times, and also did an impressive Endo trying to make a steep rocky climb. What's the difference between the bike hitting the rocks at 40 mph or rocks hitting the bike at 40mph?

Up next will be a transmission cooler, and probably a set of those snow plow lights even though I didn't need them on this trip.

Here are some pictures, and I'll post more when i pull the SD card from my camera.





View of the road not obstructed at all by the motobike

[HazMatt]

"Those who say that it cannot be done shouldn't interrupt the people doing it." -Unknown

Congrats that your vision wasn't blinded (pun intended). I'd still be wary of the cooling with hotter weather imminent. There isn't a lot of space between the scoot & the grill, enough to maybe ring the grate with some scoops to scavenge more cooling airflow.

Oh, the answer to your question is Physics 101: i.e. mass and inertia.

A half kilogram rock, terminating it's aerial arc at 40 mph will do considerably less damage to the dirt bike, than when a several hundred kg bike is suddenly stopped by a granitic extrusion from it's 40 mph velocity.

You're welcome... [emoji111]

[dredman]

Glad it is working for you, as I am a bit of a rebel myself. Anytime I hear "there is only one way to do it" I start looking for more opinions.

I think in this case most of the opinions were expressed as concerns (lucky you) and not beration for exceeding standards.

Thanks for the update and pics, as I now feel fully compensated for my opinion

Oh and this was priceless:

On the trails we rode I dumped the bike at least 20 times, and also did an impressive Endo trying to make a steep rocky climb. What's the difference between the bike hitting the rocks at 40 mph or rocks hitting the bike at 40mph?

Pretty bikes are for girls and old, tired men !!
-Don

Post more moto-stuff - I am very curious about WHERE you are riding and dumping the bike?

[Free Bird]

Hey JS, hope your plan works out, you have a backup plan so it's definitely worth a try.
I have a front mounted bicycle rack on my dog nose which works great, one advantage is your bike will stay so much cleaner sitting out front when you travel on dirt roads.
I had a standard hitch receiver mounted up front which sits pretty much flush with the bumper. You could weld in a couple of them for better stability.

[reedy]

See I told you it would work. This site has mucho info on it. It also has some well meaning folks who have never traveled 100 miles. Any way I can see from your photos That you are out there DOING it. Keep the shiny side up.

[Jsneeb]

Thanks Reedy.

Also I genuinely appreciate those that cautioned it might not work. Their advice, if constructive, is valuable so I can be aware of the possible problems to be aware of.

Im glad it worked out though. The real test will be when it's 100 degrees out.

A transmission cooler will be installed by then and should reduce the tax on the main radiator.

[chrisml]

I lurk around here even though my wife will probably never approve of a skoolie..


If anyone else is interested in doing something like this but still on the fence, a friend of mine tows his Jeep and his Harley around behind his traditional Class A. He has a tow dolly with a platform on the front where the bike goes, then the front wheels of the jeep go behind the bike on the dolly, and the rear wheels of the Jeep stay on the ground. I'm pretty sure his was custom built by one of his friends, but it seems that these are available as a commercial product by a company called tandem tow. They can also be found by searching the internet for "deck over car dolly"

[Jsneeb]

Someone messaged me asking how this front mounted motorcycle rack has held up over the years. I continue to use it to transport my Suzuki DRZ 400 or klr 650 motorcycles. I have not had any issues with overheating, I have never had a bike fall off the front, it does not obstruct my headlight visibility too bad, and has overall worked out great. I have carried a bike up front there for over 8000 miles total and will continue to use it as it keeps my rear hitch free for towing my car.

[fo4imtippin]

Originally Posted by Jsneeb

Someone messaged me asking how this front mounted motorcycle rack has held up over the years. I continue to use it to transport my Suzuki DRZ 400 or klr 650 motorcycles. I have not had any issues with overheating, I have never had a bike fall off the front, it does not obstruct my headlight visibility too bad, and has overall worked out great. I have carried a bike up front there for over 8000 miles total and will continue to use it as it keeps my rear hitch free for towing my car.

Good to know! I built a custom front bumper with two hitch recievers for the option to build a rack like yours. I will be transporting three bikes, so I built a 4ft platform on the back with a crane to load two dual sports. My son's pw80 is planned for the front rack. I live in Florida and my fan almost never turns on and I run 185 on the highway. Headlights seems like the only downside. I'm thinking of replacing my front blinkers with headlight boxes (also having signals). That would put me right at the dot 54in limit and clear the pw for sure.