Here are some pictures of our bike rack / travel tray / sewer hose carrier. We just purchased a new Skyline Koala 26SS travel trailer. We viewed a Forest River travel rack on another RV on the dealer lot. We ordered one for our trailer and had them do a custom installation. They had to cut off the original bumper and do some welding and reinforcement. We liked the travel tray because it can be folded down with the spare tire attached. I installed a front receiver hitch for our truck to have the option of putting the bikes up front. In the future we want to purchase an aluminum tool box and put that on the travel tray to store a Honda generator. I made a sewer hose carrier out of a vinyl fence post purchased at Lowes. It will hold a hose with couplings attached. Approximate cost, travel tray $600,instalation for travel tray $500, Swagman bike rack $160, front receiver hitch $150. The bike rack is solid and there is little movement.
I want to thank everybody for the good advice. I removed the spare tire from the travel tray and mounted it under the front of the trailer. I moved my sewer hose carrier to the middle of the trailer. I customized my bike rack hitch. Everything works great. I purchased the hardware for the spare tire rack from home depot. It is called unistrut and can be found in the electrical section. I kept the unistrut close together as possible. There is just enough room to get the tire in place. I can remove the tire out easily.
Mister Big wrote:
I took the above members advise and flipped the receiver up on top of the bumper. I cannot put the tray in the down position now. Not a big deal because I am not going to use it till next year anyway. I now have 26 inches of clearance for the bikes. After reading the post about the spare tire dragging when in the down position I will redesign over the winter. It would be better if the bumper would sit on top of the frame supports giving me more clearance for the spare tire in the down position.I will probably go to a 5 inch metal bumper to hold the sewer hose with the couplings on. And I will have the receive welded to the bumper rather than bolt on. Thanks for all the advise. Hopefully everyone can learn from this also.
This picture looks like your 5" square bumper would scrape "Now". You probably will damage it during the next trip, and then need to relocate it either behind the 4" bumper or slightly above and behind it.
I would be making the modifications now, not later.
While 12" clearance from the front hitch to the bottom of the bike rack is more than sufficient, 18" on the rear of the trailer might not be nearly enough. IT all has to deal with how far the rack is from the tires. In the front of the truck, the tires are only 3' from the rack, while the trailer might be 5 - 9 feet from the trailer tires. And while pulling back onto the road out of a gas station, the back of the trailer is going down while the truck is pointing upwards and climbing onto the center of the roadway.
Good luck,
Fred.
BurbMan wrote:
Here's my build thread on adding a storage box at the rear.
Burbman you sly dog! I never saw the post on your rear rack real nice job!
I took the above members advise and flipped the receiver up on top of the bumper. I cannot put the tray in the down position now. Not a big deal because I am not going to use it till next year anyway. I now have 26 inches of clearance for the bikes. After reading the post about the spare tire dragging when in the down position I will redesign over the winter. It would be better if the bumper would sit on top of the frame supports giving me more clearance for the spare tire in the down position.I will probably go to a 5 inch metal bumper to hold the sewer hose with the couplings on. And I will have the receive welded to the bumper rather than bolt on. Thanks for all the advise. Hopefully everyone can learn from this also.
