Adding a motorcycle garage to our HDT

Gary Hage · April 20, 2017

I'm seriously considering adding a custom built 48" W X 100" L X Height yet to be determined motorcycle garage to the back of our Volvo VNL420 HDT. This in part is the result of not being allowed to park my 6' X 14' enclosed utility trailer in which we currently store this rare 1958 Harley Sportster survivor bike (all original) in at our current long term assignment. Our state park has a maximum on the number of registered vehicles the host can park at the site, and the "pony trailer" and "iron pony" locked inside exceed that number. So, not only does it suck not being able to have my Harley here to play with, we are paying to store both in a highly secured storage facility. So one day the light bulb in the brain finally went off on how to beat this rule, plus maybe even be able to unload the expense of insuring,licensing, and maintaining the PU truck to pull the utility trailer and the trailer itself. It looks like I can get a quality garage box with an automatic bike loading system mounted on the floor built and installed here locally for around 6K. Of course based upon the above, this garage [investment] is being built mainly for my convenience rather than that of the next owner of this HDT if and when we choose to sell it.

But most likely since the box would be built specific for the truck, it would then have to go with the HDT when we do sell it. My question to thee HDT community is this: Will adding a motorcycle garage that could also be used as a nice enclosed and weather proof storage area help add to the value of our HDT, do nothing to the value, or lessen the value in the eyes of most potential buyers? So far I've not seen many HDTs pulling 5ers with a motorcycle garage. I realize that I most likely would not get my full investment in the project returned at the time of a sell, especially depending upon the age of the garage, I would hope that it would in fact generate some reasonable percentage of return on that investment above that of the value of the HDT alone had it not been equipped with the garage.

Although with so many of the top shelf heavy builders dropping out of the RV industry during the more recent years, and the lighter weights builders slowly taking over that slice of the market (like my Redwood) I cannot help but wonder if like the way of the dinosaur, will we HDTers of the RV world become a thing of the past too since we won't need an HDT to pull the new 5ers anymore?

HERO Maker · April 20, 2017

You can easily do a garage for your bike and even if you don't get the full value of the cost back to you, if and when you sell it, it worked well for you while you had it.

Unless your bed is only 100 inches side, why not do a full 102 inch wide garage. What are the common lengths of some of the newer bikes out there today? Possibly making your resale potential even stronger when you are ready!

BlueLghtning · April 20, 2017

Those of us with motorcycles would certainly appreciate it and it could definitely be used for other things including more storage. I remember a HDT came up for sale on this forum and they had carried 2 motorcycles side by side in a double door type container, but the biggest issue with that truck for me was it was just a day cab with no sleeper.

Gary Hage · April 20, 2017

2 hours ago, herorock said:

You can easily do a garage for your bike and even if you don't get the full value of the cost back to you, if and when you sell it, it worked well for you while you had it.

Unless your bed is only 100 inches side, why not do a full 102 inch wide garage. What are the common lengths of some of the newer bikes out there today? Possibly making your resale potential even stronger when you are ready!

I've really been kicking the idea around and going ahead with the extra two inches to make the box a full 102" wide unit. But, one of the things I've really enjoyed the few times I have hauled our Redwood with this Volvo is the fact that both the cab and integrated sleeper match the 8' wide body on the 5er. During the years we owned our trucking business, our Kenworth T-600 did have a 132" L X 102" W ARI sleeper on it which did create quite the distance from where the sleeper stuck out from the cab at each side. Since all of our trailers in our fleet were 102" wide the sleeper did not create an obstruction in the mirrors when looking down the sides of the trailer. So I'm trying to eliminate as much of that obstruction in the mirrors on the Volvo, thus being the main reason I considered 100" verses 102", yet I'm sure it would not be a real issue. The other reason being to help keep the wind drag down by shortening the distance the garage sticks out past the sleeper catching air.

Gary Hage · April 20, 2017

2 hours ago, BlueLghtning said:

Those of us with motorcycles would certainly appreciate it and it could definitely be used for other things including more storage. I remember a HDT came up for sale on this forum and they had carried 2 motorcycles side by side in a double door type container, but the biggest issue with that truck for me was it was just a day cab with no sleeper.

I don't think that we could have been any luckier than we were when we found Marv's HDT for sale on this forum. It was exactly what we wanted to build as an HDT for our comfort and needs. Even with him having the pin distance from the center of the drive axle to the pin set at a shorter distance (which was what I wanted) than any of the other HDTs we've seen, I still have plenty of room to have a 48" wide garage mounted behind the sleeper, yet maintain the minimum 5' of horizontal clearance between the front of the Redwood and back of the garage for the tighter turning radius our 5er offers us in the design of the nose cone, etc.

As was learned when we began our quest to purchase a ready made HDT or a cab and chassis to build one finding a small sleeper tractor was near impossibly. I kid you not we looked at well over a thousand tractors both online and at the dealers lots before we found this HDT. We did not want or need the longer sleeper that seems more typical in this group, yet wasn't finding the smaller 38" - 42" sleepers that we favored for our version of an HDT. There were plenty of day cabs for sale, but going sleeperless for us was also a deal breaker no matter what the price of the tractor was.

Dose anyone know, was Marv's little VNL420 the smallest Volvo HDT in the group, or are there any other "baby HDTs" around and I've just not seem em?

BlueLghtning · April 20, 2017

@alan0043 sold a VNL 420 some time last year that had the really small sleeper also. I chatted with him a bit about it. You are right though, I don't think many people have the smaller 420/430 units.

At the time I thought I wanted bigger, but I think his would have worked out nice too the way he had it setup.

BlueLghtning · April 20, 2017

Delete. I misread your post.

bigstick · April 20, 2017

I carry a Road King on a Rampage loader on my truck. In my opinion a 4 ft wide garage is only big enough to carry your motorcycle. It would be very awkward to even get in there to tie your bike down (unless you had more doors built into the garage).

If you wanted to work on your bike inside the garage you should allow some space for you to move around.

I believe it was Nolan that had that day cab KW with the 2 bike garage with loaders.

BTW we need pics of your 58, I am also a 58 model, but I'm sure your Harley is in much better shape than me!

noteven · April 20, 2017

Hi Gary -

I use an AmeriDeck machine in the back of a pickup - all tie down / un-tie down work is done on the ground - no climbing around in the back of a truck to tie down etc.

AmeriDeck

The bike and platform are then lifted onto the vehicle. The body on the truck if you need one containing the bike can be quite compact - you don't need to get in and climb around the bike. By it's design this particular machine would be too long with a full size 8-1/2' long motorcycle to cross load from the curb or driver side - only suggesting it as a tie down on the ground concept.

You could actually build a van body that hooks off the truck to the ground - but at 48" wide limit you would need some side access doors to do some tie downs -

or set up with something like B&W bike tie down system which I believe are compatible with H-D's

I've thought of different ideas for cross loading bikes on a hdt - if a guy built a "garage" I would make it generic so it could be transferred to the next truck or whatever if a next owner doesn't want it - trucks have standard frame widths of 34".

Or make the whole thing hook off to the ground like an AmeriDeck van body...

You could recess the load arm into the front of the body to keep the width at 8'6" ...

Hot Rod · April 21, 2017

Agree with bigstick, I have my toyhauler garage split with a wall to haul cargo on one side and my street glide (full dress like an ultra) on the other side. At 4' wide in that garage space, it is impossible to squeeze past the fairing from the back to tie down the front. I have to open the dividing door from the living space to tie down the front of the bike, then open the side door of the garage to tie down the middle, then I throw an extra strap from rear wheel straight back. Point being it would be impossible for me to tie down without all the extra doors for access. At a minimum I would suggest a fairly large access hatch on the other side to reach in and tie down. I know some of the expensive loaders tie the bike to the loader "sled" while on the ground then the loader winches in and locks into place, so you may not have that problem. I'd still add an access door.

I don't think a large storage box could ever hurt resale value, everybody needs more storage. That is assuming the thing is pleasing to the eye, well constructed, etc. If you are looking at resale, maybe consider adding a couple of rows of e-track to the walls so that drop in shelving can be added simply if the next owner does not have a motorcycle. I would also make the box as wide as legally possible, some of the newer bikes will not fit in 100". I build the box on my Topkick with potentially loading a motorcycle back there. My box is 100" wide to match a race trailer I had at the time, and a touring bike will NOT fit crosswise. A smaller bike like a dyna would though. I only ended up about 95" inside. If you have a specific loader in mind, take the time to call and talk to the mfg, tell them your project, and get their help with the measurements needed to fit in there.