I went with outmotoring aka minidomore mostly because the hitch receiver is completely hidden and I want this thing completely hidden when not in use! not cheap I must say considering how simple it is... oh well.
Okay the hitch receiver is on the roadster tonight but I couldn't finish because I didn't have what I needed on hand to cut the bumper metal which is quite thick, and I didn't want to wake my neighbor's kid :razz:, so I'll have to remove the external bumper again... at least the next time will be faster now that I know what to do. And boy those plastic snaps drove me crazy . I have 3 to replace now... I also decided to keep the foam liner instead of disregarding it. I simply cut it with a wood saw. It was easy and keeps some of the electronic component where they where I was also very happy that the formed steel plate to remove is heavy enough that the hitch receiver isn't that much more weight added. Yeah!!!! I'm going to weight it later to see what is my added weight from the hitch install. Here's a few:
I'm not sure I actually explained what the project is on here much just yet... so here it goes: I'm installing a hitch receiver for two reasons: - The primary one is to mount a spare tire on the rear of the car for long road strips. - The second reason is more of an after though. It's to carry some bikes occasionally. My original plan was to custom everything but as I was not sure what structural aspect of the car i could use to rely on a strong setup, finding ways to mount any contraption to the frame was slowing me down on this project. I think getting the hidden hitch will save me a tone of time dealing with that aspect. I'm much more comfortable building something that attaches to the hitch than figuring out how to do it to the frame in a robust way. I'm a bit of a perfectionist so the plan is for a supper clean setup! Some objective of mine for this project: - All hidden. All should be seamless and hidden away when not in use. I won't use a cap but rather carefully cut the bumper cover honeycomb pattern in key locations and use it as a cap that will be held by the hitch receiver. - Get the spare tire close to the boot, unlike any other setup that seats far out. The challenge will be to make sure no vibrations allows the setup to touch the car body. - Create some sort of cover to make it look fancy and well integrated. I'm not sure on the materials yet for that (soft vs hard). - Make the design so it doesn't hurt the car overall look. - Be able to attached the wheel with the flat back on it. It's nice to take a spare with us but one cannot forget the wheel with the flat needs to be brought back - Be able to easily relocate the license plate (kind of a must :wink. - Last but not least, be able to move the spare aside to access the inside of the boot as fast as possible. It's a tall order but we'll see
Well I just finished mounted the hitch but of course I didn't noticed that the thing looks crooked. I'm concerned everything I'm going to mount to it is going to look crooked and really bad! What do you guys think?
Okay, so despite the crooked hitch receiver I mentioned in my previous post I've started taking measurements for the project today. The intent being to create a some initial diminutional prototype.
I looked at it again today from under the car and I think it's the weld. My guess is that it moved in their jigs (if they even used a jig) when they welded it. It's definitely skewed from the cross member. Very disapointing
Like your template and drawings.... I guess I'm the last guy on the planet that still does stuff in inches... Can't get my head around mm.... I do like the brown one's though...
I use both interchangeably without any bias. It's all about what's more practical for me. In this case it is hard to get accurate angle measurements (the longer the line, the greater the error) so to get better accuracy I use triangulated dimensions which allows me to know more how much error to account for. mm are more precise in this case, and quick for hand measurements (I'd waste my time with fractions on inches.) The decimal system is really the easiest. Think of it as simply counting foot steps. However easiest doesn't always mean fastest, it's harder to divide quickly and numbers gets bigger. So when I need to know more quickly the middle of a dimension, count a surface area, or if I need to measure something more grossly I'll use inches just as easily. What ever works best for that application is what I'll use :wink:
I do all my test plotting in a cad program.... I have a HP color plotter that uses roll paper 4' x 500' I do the paper 1:1 cad plot cut outs taped to cardboard or scrap metal for quick fit verification before I make a test part.... Then back to adjusting the cad drawing until it's what I want.... Then the file gets saved All my work is at 3 place inch decimals.... If I want metric, the program can switch....
Yes, I use CAD as well often (SolidWorks or ProE). It depends what I build... This was just for initial measurement of the bumper geometry. Next I'll be doing 3 things: Some sketching to look at different ways to design it, start to put things in CAD for detail refinement of some of the more mechanical areas, and in parallel possibly some model prototype to check the design use. :biggrin5: We use to have a plotter at work but it stopped working and it has not been the first priority to replace but It's a lot faster to trace by hand on paper sometime for simple things like this.