Making the tire carrier removable

[SENC]

Well done indeed, on both counts!

[JohnCh]

Here's a photo of Alaskossie's luggage rack sans luggage.

 

 

 

Edited to add a second photo taken from the other side with a little more detail.

 

-John

[panamericano]

A truly impressive piece of work.

[rdhunt1]

Sorry...last pic dominated by the lightened car jack!

 

I love it! What a great idea. Now I am wondering if i should make a rack to hold my Givi saddlebags from the K13??! Even cooler would be the large aluminum cases!

[Alaskossie]

Thanks John C. and Skip for filling in photos of the details of my luggage rack, before I could jump to it.

 

Most of the details are apparent from those photos. The rack is fabricated from aluminum tubing, with bends made on a hand-powered pipe bender, pop-riveted together for the most part, but welded by a professional shop at a few places.

 

The basic frame is a square tubing "ladder" that fits over the spare-tire stub mounts, and is fastened at the top by nylon web straps to the rear roll-bar mounts with a clevis-ring arrangement. So the weight of the rack and contents is divided between the spare-tire stubs and the roll-bar attachment to the car's upper frame. Then the spare tire and the detached tire mount are re-fitted to the rear of the car.

 

Not clear from the photos is the fold-down platform right behind the spare tire. This can be used in combination with the side luggage mounts, or they can be detached and only the central rear platform used. Both this central fold-down rack and the two side racks are fitted by slip-=joints (held by stainless cross-bolts and nylock nuts) to mounting points on the ladder frame. The ladder frame is drilled for lightness, BTW.

 

All three luggage platforms have web straps retained in place by footmen's loops, and with quick-detach Delrin buckles. The three luggage containers are all heavy-duty nylon downhill ski boot bags that I found on the internet, and I had extra slip-on waterproof nylon covers made for them.

 

The only disadvantage when the side pods are used, is that the right-hand side luggage bag (but not the right-hand frame) must be move when filling the gas tank. I couldn't get around that fact of life....

 

I'm posting a couple of additional photos.

[Alaskossie]

@rdhunt1 -- the drilled and lightened aluminum car jack is from a Porsche 944. As it turned out (after all that work lightening it), it is only a few qounces lighter than the stock Caterham (Ford?) jack.....but the ounces make the pounds...

[rdhunt1]

Thanks for the additional pics! I was looking at the back of the 7 yesterday thinking that any such rack should also hook over the into the trunk or get some top support from somewhere. The roll bar and/or its attachment points were the logical answer, proved by your use of them. Love the thought behind yours, and when not needed, completely removable.

[Anker]

I am going to build one, but use PVC pipe instead of metal for the initial implementation. My version will eliminate the spare wheen and use the space for storage instead.