Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2015 18:11:30 -0700
Reply-To: Alistair Bell <albell@SHAW.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Alistair Bell <albell@SHAW.CA>
Subject: Re: Playing around with rear hatch carrier
In-Reply-To: <5E07EC03-6A87-41E3-A42E-9E0551F92442@NBNet.nb.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Good question. My friend has been running the paulchen over to one side with spare on it for a couple elf years now. Not a problem yet.
I don't see the offset to be much of an issue, but you never know. My aluminum rack weighs about 15 lbs. The wheel and tire must be 45-50lbs. So about 60-65 lbs total.
I've seen gary lee racks, both full width and the ladder type loaded up pretty heavily what with tire, jerry cans, bikes. I haven't heard of any issues but maybe folk aren't saying anything.
His racks are steel, my rack is aluminum. You could argue that steel is better for this application and I wouldn't disagree. But I could make an aluminum version faster and easier than steel. If I like the rack, I may make another ( or more) from steel or more likely stainless. We don't like working with steel in the shop as we do mostly stainless and aluminum fab. We are careful about contaminating the tools and workspace with steel.
I'm not saying the hatch rack is the answer to all my problems :-) I was forced into it by mounting my big battery where the spare goes and by my failure in making a satisfactory swing away tire carrier.
I don't know if you have realized yet how much I enjoy making things for the van. Most of not all of the time it's an experiment, I make it up as I go, drawing upon other designs and people's suggestions. For sure, not all of my efforts work out. I'm not afraid to try things and quite often they are failures. I was happy with this ladder rack in that it worked out first time. I'm going to savour that as long as I can, it doesn't happen every day.
Alistair
> On Jul 12, 2015, at 5:38 PM, Roy Nicholl <RNicholl@NBNet.nb.ca> wrote:
>
> Alistair,
>
> How will the hatch stand-up to that weight over the long haul? It's beefier than a couple of bicycles handing off the hatch and all on the one side.
>
>> On 12-Jul-2015, at 21:33, Alistair Bell wrote:
>>
>> It is and I am using the tube over the strut method of keeping hatch up.
>>
>> But, plan on buying stronger struts. My friend has a pair of 1200 N struts ( German vanagon supplier) that works like a charm with his wheel on hatch set up.
>>
>> I think stock struts are 475 N, heavy duty maybe 700 N
>>
>> Alistair
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Jul 12, 2015, at 4:52 PM, Rob <vwrobb@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> It looks like opening the rear hatch would be a bear with the spare tire on it.
>>>
>>> Rob
>>> vwrobb@gmail.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> At 7/12/2015 11:56 AM, Alistair Bell wrote:
>>>> Trying out a ladder type carrier I made to replace the paulchen. The paulchen was over kill for carrying a spare and I really don't like how it didn't grab the hatch as well as I though it should. full disclosure, the paulchen was originally a eurovan version that I cut down to fit the shorter hatch of the vanagon. That might be why it didn't grab super securely. Mind you the angles all look pretty well the same as on the stock vanagon paulchen. But I digress, pic of the new rack here
>>>>
>>>> https://shufti.wordpress.com/2015/07/12/vanagon-hatch-mounted-spare-tire-carrier/
>>>>
>>>> I'll give a go unpainted, maybe I'll be modifying it. Then I'll paint black.
>>>>
>>>> Alistair
>>>
>
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