Jim,
I can't remember if you have any rear overhang with the 450, but my TC does. To accomplish two things at once, I bought an aluminum hitch rack (about 15 pounds) that fits in the rear (or front) receiver. It stuck out a little ways past the end of the camper so I cut down the 2" shank and drilled a new 5/8" hole for the pin as close as i could to touching the bumper. This allowed me to store firewood, recovery gear in boxes and extra diesel fuel (in those lowboy yellow cans) tightly up under the bottom of the overhanging camper, all secure by side turnbuckles. In 2006:
You'll note I still have the stairs attached. They just don't fold underneath as previously.
I noticed that if you could find square tubing that would fit in the shank of the carrier, you could probably install some kind of steps there; just farther back than in the hitch receiver.
Another thing to consider is the likelihood that your WA firewood would be confiscated at the the ID or MT or WY border because of the pest threat. For a long time I carried a 14 inch chain saw and scavenged down wood as it became available some time before getting to camp.
These are my observations on using a rear rack to haul your goods.
1. It gets very dirty and possibly wet back there so only weather proof containers need apply. Nothing electronic or mechanical. A shovel, maybe; but that would need to be bungie down if you wanted to use it at your destination.
2. Not much security in city parking.You don't want to leave anything of perceived value back there in the city.
3. It does mess up your departure angle a bit, but I had no trouble in Death Valley when going over rough ground.
4. It's fairly short of height which limits the size of container you can use under there.
5. On on-road excursions with our kids and g-kids, I parked nine folding director's chairs under there but it was like solving the Rubric's Cube to make that work.
jefe
