Calculations/ weights for bed Build needed

Brian C · July 17, 2019

4 hours ago, Jack Mayer said:

It is going to be challenging to get a motorcycle on next to a Jeep. How are you going to get it into place? What mechanism will hold it safely? Where will you find the "room"?

On the "rack" above the Jeep hood, what are you going to use to elevate it? It is not at all simple to do safely. It has to be braced very securely...

You want to add a lift mechanism and motorcycle racks to that, lengthen it significantly, and get it delivered to you for around 6K by your statement. That is simply not realistic. You could not build a simple deck of any quality for that.

You can "crowdsource" a design for a Jeep deck. That will get you an outline you can build. But even if you do much of the work yourself you will be spending over 10K to complete the project. At least in my opinion, and we do this every day....

Thank you Jack, that is a lot to digest.

To answer your questions, perhaps out of order:

I can buy an all metal car hauler flat bed twin axle style trailer without the axles and without the tongue for $3k. I’ve already sourced it from a well known and reputable trailer builder. Ultimately then it comes to mounting it to the truck. ~$500.00. It really is not that big of a feat.

The lift I am not trying to do right away, but I have my ideas. I have a great deal of experience in the expedition travel or vehicle based world travel arena. In this world we have seen motorcycle racks for over a dozen years. It is actually fairly straight forward. Your rack required significant engineering because of the width I should assume. I have never seen how it is raised or lowered and that may make a difference as well. I have seen people putting two spare tires the size of two HDT tires with heavy off-road tread side by side, and then a 450lbs motorcycle beyond that. It can all be made to be lifted on rails by a simple warm winch. Pins to lock it in place once up. Again, it is fairly straightforward.

I am not at all trying to crowdsource anything, though I know someone who did it fairly successfully with a massive expedition truck. I am simply attempyto crowdsource the calculations. I respect the experience of those here. I would be remiss not to utilize the experience I already have. I realize that a 30,000lbs truck going down the highways and down bouncy 4x4 trails is not the same as a 25,000lbs truck just built for highway use, but I believe the similarities exist in substantial enough areas as to continue to use both your wisdom and mine.

My thought for the eventual deck is either a slide system that goes vertical or a hinges system that flows from BOC towards the rear of the truck.

Edit: Jack I forgot to answer your question of placement. Sorry about that. Right now I do not have the Jeep, we only had an RZR. The RZR is ~60” wide. That gives me 21” on either side of the machine with which to utilize as motorcycle parking. I will park the bikes first and strap them down. Then I can park the RZR and strap it down. When the Jeep comes along it will be fully 13.8” wider, and will require some rethinking of the configurations. Either way, with largest, by far, bike that is only 20” wide (not including the handlebars) I should easily be able to park the bike at the outer edge of the deck and have room to park the RZR.

I hope this has answered some some of your questions.

God Bless,

Brian

Edited July 17, 2019 by Brian C

Brian C · July 17, 2019

3 hours ago, noteven said:

So my design criteria for a CanAm capable rig would be a max 65ft overall combination length, including up to 40ft tow vehicle (480”).

(Etc...)

Once the rig sketches out dimensions wise then you go to calculating weight distribution

rickeieio - please check my math I’m partially incapacitated due to ridingitis.

dont tell my therapist

(I cut a bit out of the middle to save space. I’m sure folks can look above if they wish to reread your thoughts. Cheers)

I hope you had a great ride! Thanks for the info. Yes, I am tracking all of that. I had done my maths on lengths and I am comfortable with where I will sit length wise. Now I am to the point of determining balances and weights. As I mentioned I have listed as many of the weights as I now have, and I can gather the rest in due course.

Alaska Law, “the overall length of a combination of vehicles, consisting of a truck and one cargo-carrying vehicle or a truck tractor and one or two cargo- carrying vehicles, may not exceed 75 feet;” -17 AAC 25.012.d3 (Edit: I should add, for those who may not like the wording, that is just how we do it in AK. The law calls side by sides, three wheelers, and four wheelers, 6x6 and all other off highway vehicles with more than two tires “snow machines” and we all get snow machine registrations go figure.)

I have been told (above) that there is not reciprocity on length laws from state to state. I was not aware of that, and will certainly research to confirm, but for now I will operate as considering it fact.

The length of my vehicle and trailer as sketched out is well within that limit. I can hang off a nice bicycle rack on the back of the trailer should I care to. Thank you all for the concern on my length and cost.

Has anyone any more thoughts on the topic which we were kindly initially discussing?

by the way noteven. I was meaning to ask, fancy a trip to Idaho? I’ve got a pad of paper waiting. LOL 😂.

Take care, and God Bless.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Brian C

rickeieio · July 17, 2019

8 hours ago, noteven said:

rickeieio - please check my math I’m partially incapacitated due to ridingitis.

dont tell my therapist

Just noodling, and no coffee yet, so I may be off a bit........... Using your numbers above, adding 12" behind the pin and a small sleeper cab gives a truck in the 40'-45' range. If titled as a MH, it's getting close to legal limits, and makes for a very short trailer. Much of the length issues go away with a toy hauler, at the expense of living space.

There's a member (old timer) who loads a jeep and a Suzuki DR650 side by side.

noteven · July 17, 2019

Howdy Brian an Rick,

Rick - morning- hauling other vehicles longwise is more complex- yes a toyhauler

Brian -

great you have your lengths calculated. Everything you want fits “ on paper” . Cheapest place to figure it out. 😀

And now start calculating point loads and where they will be along the frame.

And then do the weight distribution you are asking about in the first place.

So find out what your “must haves” weigh and where they apply that load to the frame.

And then your “would be nice to haves”...

Am I repeating myself? It sounds even to me like I am 🤣

By the way if you can get a bed with any kind of hydraulic side lift, RV hitch, paint and a toolbox engineered and installed in compliance with federal standards for $18K that should be seriously looked at rather than a self managed project.

Anyway I have to travel so I am going off the air for a while.

adept99 · July 17, 2019

Wow...Just Wow

noteven · July 17, 2019

29 minutes ago, adept99 said:

Wow...Just Wow

I’m not as stupid as I come across I don’t think ...honest I aren’t- I’m blaming it on thumb typing on an iDevice ...🤣

Big5er · July 17, 2019

On 7/16/2019 at 6:36 AM, rickeieio said:

Hopefully big5er will step in and correct me if I'm wrong here, but as Steve said, there's no length limit on a road tractor. But, when you carry a lod on a bed, it's no longer a tractor, it's a truck, no matter what type hitch. Most states have a length limit of an rv at 45', and 65' for combination. This is NOT reciprocal, so local law applies when you leave your home state, same as any other length/width/weight laws.

You have a lot of homework to do. Good luck.

You don't need me, Rick. You are spot on for the difference between a tractor and a truck and that length is not reciprocal. To many followers of the FB pages seem to forget these things. They think BIG truck can just haul whatever and as much as they desire. That's why I don't go there...see my new signature

Big5er · July 17, 2019

6 hours ago, noteven said:

I’m not as stupid as I come across I don’t think ...honest I aren’t

I just re-read that....and I promise I won't say anything
(sorry, NE..I just couldn't resist)

phoenix2013 · July 17, 2019

OK, now that the cat fight is over I'm ready to play.

Brian, this is quite an ambitious project and I see two very positive things, you research things and ask questions and you are not afraid to expose your thinking to others who may know more (or less). This forum is a perfect place to expose one's ideas to "scrutiny", I do it all the time. Yes folks here have "opinions", but more importantly folks here have experience, having actually done things rather than "theorizing" about getting things done.

One number I would like you focus on 13' 6", typical height of a semi roof. Good to have it embedded in your brain while reading bridge height markers, that's 162 inches. Just like you I had an idea at one time.

For me it was a hitch service and installation shop.

For other clients I built it for, it was a motorcycle lift and a garage.

Let's go back to 13' 6" or 162". The top of your semi frame is at 40 inches, your deck thickness (to clear the tires with deflated suspension) has to be at least 5 inches high, that's 45 inches total subtract the two (162-45=117). How high is hood of the Jeep, I'm guessing maybe 40 inches, that's 77 inches left. Around six feet. So the first indication is that you have enough height for a motorcycle, certainly without a windscreen they are not six feet tall. But there are other things to consider, note that I had a nice sloped roof coming down to the door frame and that the door frame was 5" structural tubing with the corresponding tubing frame on the drivers side.

Between that roof height, the support beam and the hoist mechanism that had to hang below the door frame to come out and lift things, that six feet of space shrunk down considerably. But the nice rounded roof could be flat and the beam could be at the top, but don't forget you would have to have some sort of deck above the hood of the Jeep to set the bike on and secure it.

If I was doing what you try to do, I wouldn't screw around with this approach, the most effective solution is a lifting platform. I've never seen the truck Jack and Mark did, but I believe that's what they did. I did talk to Mark and Jack about it so I do know that the technical challenges they were "fussing about" are the same ones I encountered. The most critical one is the structural integrity. You have a 1,000 lb motorcycle sitting 5 feet up off the deck and you are going 60 miles an hour, you put the hammers down, that motorcycle has all the kinetic energy of 1,000 pounds going at 60 mph and wants to keep going (through the cab and give you short haircut). F=ma old Isaac's formula Force = mass x acceleration (or deceleration). So, how you design and anchor the main structural cage or a frame to the deck is critical. If you look carefully at the preliminary sketch I did note that the four corners on the "bridge sections" sit on top of structural beams running across the frame rails, these are not tubing, or C-channels, these are H beams with center web and two flanges on both sides. On the above photo look at the bottoms of those bridge tubings, note the massive mounting plates used to attach the structure through the deck into those H beams. The rest of the structure was put together with only thin wall tubing, 1" square and once welded together formed a very stiff and substantial torque cage, which became even more stronger once skinned with sheet metal

However, from the very beginning we made sure first that our two "bridge section" would work and attach properly to the truck, they were the key to everything.

That's enough for today, I'll have bunch of things to share for you later.

Edited July 17, 2019 by phoenix2013

Brian C · July 17, 2019

3 hours ago, phoenix2013 said:

Brian, this is quite an ambitious project and I see two very positive things, you research things and ask questions and you are not afraid to expose your thinking to others who may know more (or less). This forum is a perfect place to expose one's ideas to "scrutiny", I do it all the time. Yes folks here have "opinions", but more importantly folks here have experience, having actually done things rather than "theorizing" about getting things done.

One number I would like you focus on 13' 6", typical height of a semi roof. Good to have it embedded in your brain while reading bridge height markers, that's 162 inches. Just like you I had an idea at one time.

Thank you Phoenix2013, it should be pretty swell once we are complete.

My though for the motorcycle rack is more along these lines.

The rails do do not need to super tall, as the rack only need go half the height of the rack of course.

Thank you for your help. That all makes great sense. Well explained. Thank you.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Brian C

Jack Mayer · July 18, 2019

We used a hydraulic motorcycle service lift for the stacker lift table. Done over again we would simply use hydraulic cylinders and do the design and layout ourselves instead of a "store bought" lift. Or, use a winch. The advantage of the lift was it was pre-engineered with safety factors built in, and cut our time down quite a bit. Time is money for the customer. Not so much for the DIY builder.

All of this stuff is possible. I just find it unlikely that it is going to happen for the price "required". Even attempting a bargain price is going to require ALL the work be done by free labor, and use of donated or salvage parts except perhaps repurposing of some manufactured trailer parts.

Brian C · July 18, 2019

The other idea I rather liked was something like the rectangular shape of your first (above) mock-up. The differences would be I would install a pivot point at the bottom of each of the four legs. Then a winch can lower it down to the deck. I have seen it done with snow machines and it was brilliant. It would not not be too dissimilar to this.

https://www.dock-factory.com/product-page/boat-lifts