John: I used the $67 one from LCI. My reasoning was that it was intended for my application, so from a liability standpoint, I can argue I did due diligence when selecting components. The safety chains is another due diligence thing. While I am a physicist, I am not an automotive engineer. Incorporating the winch component into my design results in something that is my design -- not Jayco or LCI. I am responsible for any flaws in the design. So the chains as a backup shows a serious effort on my part to create a safe design. If by some chance there was a failure, it would have to be a freak thing, and I could successfully argue I was not negligent and there was no malfeasance on my part -- it was simply a freak accident.
The trucks like Ford and GM have no safety mechanism. Both of those companies have accepted the potential liability of that design. I have heard a rumor that the cable alone is not accepted in Canada. Perhaps one of our Canadian members here could tell us if there is any truth to that.
But as I recall John, at the same time I was under there relocating my spare, you were in the same spot under yours relocating your ladder. So you must have some other location in mind. Curious as to your thoughts on the ideal location for a TT.
ExRocketScientist wrote: John: I used the $67 one from LCI. My reasoning was that it was intended for my application, so from a liability standpoint, I can argue I did due diligence when selecting components. The safety chains is another due diligence thing. While I am a physicist, I am not an automotive engineer. Incorporating the winch component into my design results in something that is my design -- not Jayco or LCI. I am responsible for any flaws in the design. So the chains as a backup shows a serious effort on my part to create a safe design. If by some chance there was a failure, it would have to be a freak thing, and I could successfully argue I was not negligent and there was no malfeasance on my part -- it was simply a freak accident.
The trucks like Ford and GM have no safety mechanism. Both of those companies have accepted the potential liability of that design. I have heard a rumor that the cable alone is not accepted in Canada. Perhaps one of our Canadian members here could tell us if there is any truth to that.
But as I recall John, at the same time I was under there relocating my spare, you were in the same spot under yours relocating your ladder. So you must have some other location in mind. Curious as to your thoughts on the ideal location for a TT.
EX,
Your thoughts about liability and the an additional saftey setup echo mine to a T. I will add something extra as a back up.
The location, yes the spot behind the axles is taken already. The spot I had in mind is right up front behind the A Frame header. I have the tire in the cargo hole directly above. So this location will not shift the tongue weight the way I am currently balanced, 15% and 1,400# now. My 10" tall frame rails will create a pretty big hole to cover the majority of the tire if not all of it. I would have to get the winch up tight to the bottom of the TT (top of frame.)
I'm still beating up the decision of winch to "hang" the tire or an angle iron frame that spans the frame rails and pivots down on one end to hold (support) the tire. The angle iron frame is not going anywhere... a little more weight and maybe not as elegant as the winch to crank up and down but the risk issue is less. I am not weight strapped on GVWR so I can handle the extra 25# to 35# of steel. And I have to create some kind of steel cross member to mount the winch too any way. Like a 3" C channel.
Still deciding.
John
John & Cindy
2005 Ford F350 Super Duty, 4x4; 6.8L V10 with 4.10
CC, SB, Lariat & FX4 package
21,000 GCWR, 11,000 GVWR
Ford Tow Command
1,700# Reese HP hitch & HP Dual Cam
2 1/2" Towbeast Receiver
2004 Sunline Solaris T310SR
(I wish we were camping!)
ExRocketScientist wrote: John: I used the $67 one from LCI. My reasoning was that it was intended for my application, so from a liability standpoint, I can argue I did due diligence when selecting components. The safety chains is another due diligence thing. While I am a physicist, I am not an automotive engineer. Incorporating the winch component into my design results in something that is my design -- not Jayco or LCI. I am responsible for any flaws in the design. So the chains as a backup shows a serious effort on my part to create a safe design. If by some chance there was a failure, it would have to be a freak thing, and I could successfully argue I was not negligent and there was no malfeasance on my part -- it was simply a freak accident.
The trucks like Ford and GM have no safety mechanism. Both of those companies have accepted the potential liability of that design. I have heard a rumor that the cable alone is not accepted in Canada. Perhaps one of our Canadian members here could tell us if there is any truth to that.
But as I recall John, at the same time I was under there relocating my spare, you were in the same spot under yours relocating your ladder. So you must have some other location in mind. Curious as to your thoughts on the ideal location for a TT.
EX,
Your thoughts about liability and the an additional saftey setup echo mine to a T. I will add something extra as a back up.
The location, yes the spot behind the axles is taken already. The spot I had in mind is right up front behind the A Frame header. I have the tire in the cargo hole directly above. So this location will not shift the tongue weight the way I am currently balanced, 15% and 1,400# now. My 10" tall frame rails will create a pretty big hole to cover the majority of the tire if not all of it. I would have to get the winch up tight to the bottom of the TT (top of frame.)
I'm still beating up the decision of winch to "hang" the tire or an angle iron frame that spans the frame rails and pivots down on one end to hold (support) the tire. The angle iron frame is not going anywhere... a little more weight and maybe not as elegant as the winch to crank up and down but the risk issue is less. I am not weight strapped on GVWR so I can handle the extra 25# to 35# of steel. And I have to create some kind of steel cross member to mount the winch too any way. Like a 3" C channel.
Still deciding.
John
You may want some more pictures of mine. It was all angle iron. If anyone is interested, let me know before the bad weather sets in Sunday and I will post some here (I need to check the air pressure in that spare anyway).
But I ask you to consider this. I used to have an F250 prior to us geting the F350 we have now. I can barely lift the tires used on either one (same for my new wheels/tires on the fiver). The rack on the F250 was basically a piece of C channel that the tire bolted to through one of the lug nut holes. One end hung from a long rod that was attached to the frame somewhere near the left back tire. The other end had a key hole type arrangement that went over top of an eye bolt with a washer near the eye that hung from the frame near where the rear bumper attached on the passenger side. On this end of the carrier, they had welded a piece of tube that you could slip the lug wrench into for leverage. It sort of worked, until I added the hitch receiver. Then you could only lift it up part way with the lug wrench. What I found myself doing was crawling under the truck and placing my legs under the spare and rocking back and lifting with my arms. Or I would lift it as high as I could with the lug wrench and slip the jack under it and jack it the rest of the way. The latter method was harder than it sounds because you had to have the C channel balanced on top of the jack or it would roll off the jack to one side.
The F350 has the winch. Even my wife can deal with the spare.
So if you go with this hinged arrangement, design it so that there is no balancing issues (so have two hinges at least two feet apart) and you can some how incorporate some leverage or your jack to get it up and down.
Here are some more pictures of my relocation of the spare underneath the trailer using the winch from Lippert Components Inc. I used 1/8" thick angle iron. Some of it is 1.5" and some of it is 1". In this first picture, you are going to see a truss made of angle iron. There are two of these that go crosswise of the frame. They are not quite as tall as the I-beam frame rails, and I will get to the reason why in a bit.
A truss that goes cross wise of the frame (this is the one toward the front of the trailer -- it is almost directly over top of the rear axle:
In this next picture (which is actually the truss toward the back of the trailer, You can see how I welded the truss together:
The ends of these trusses sit on top of the flange at the bottom of the I-beam. It is extremely important when you weld a piece of angle crosswise of a frame like this that you weld along both legs of the angle as shown in the next picture. If you don't, the flexing of the frame will start bending the angle back and forth along the weld. Eventually metal fatigue will result and the weld will break.
Here is the end of the front truss welded to the bottom of the I-beam on the curb side:
Here is the top of the truss welded in just above it:
Keep in mind, there is a water proof plastic barrier on the underside of the trailer that comes in contact with the top of the I-beam. It is very flammable. That is one of the reasons you don't want the truss to be as tall as the I-beam. When you weld in the top, you put a heat shield in between the truss and the plastic. I use a piece of sheet metal. It needs to be big enough to also shield the plastic from any flying sparks. I keep a big fire extinguisher nearby, and a spray bottle with water in it under the trailer there with me. Before I strike up each weld, I grab the spray bottle first and give it a pump to make sure it is still primed.
Now I needed something to go from one truss to the other that the winch would bolt to. A piece of C-channel would work, however, I wanted to get the winch up as high as possible and also not be winching the sidewalls of the tire up against the edge of the c-channel. So I took four pieces of angle and welded 2 each together in sort of an S shape. Then I welded these two together into a sort of rectangular shape with some short pieces of angle on the ends. As you can see in the next picture of this, the width of the rectangle was such that the winch fit in there perfectly:
I want to point out a few things in that last picture. The first is obvious -- I did not mask off the plastic on the bottom of the trailer before I painted and ended up getting the ruddy brown primer all over it. The second is this part that holds the winch is longer than the distance between the trusses so that the ends of it sits on top of the trusses. This is the other reason why the trusses are not as tall as the I-beam. You will also notice where I welded it to the top of the truss, those are some really lousy welds. Every once in a while I will do a really bad weld. But they all started doing this. What I discovered was the clamp that held the MIG welding hose into the welder by the wire drive unit had come loose. It was actually arcing inside of the welder because there was virtually no surface area left to make electrical contact. Once I fixed that, I went back to making fairly decent welds. I also had to use a heat shield when I did these welds because of their close proximity to the plastic. I used a piece of aluminum flashing backed by a piece of cork tile.
In this next picture, you can see the grade 5 bolts that hold the winch in. Now the winch comes with just a short shaft, about an inch and a half long sticking out of the end of it. It has a hole through it. I just put a piece of black iron pipe over it with a screw and nylock nut to hold it on. Because of the pipe, There had to be a notch cut in one of the pieces of angle. To keep that notch from weakening the structure, I welded a short piece of angle to the bottom over the notch. It is short enough that it fits inside of the wheel and does not contact the sidewalls of the tire.
What you will also notice in that last picture is that I ran out of black paint. LOL. You can also see I rounded the corners of the short piece of angle that I welded over the notch so that I wouldn't tear up my scalp when I bumped my head on it while doing this project. What you can't see in the last two pictures is that the long pieces of angle welded into the sort of S shape were stitch welded together. The welds that would come in contact with the sidewalls of the tire were ground down so they would not make indentations in the side wall of the tire.
This next picture is to show a little more detail of the pipe for operating the winch. Yes . . . I ran out of paint. It has a 3/4" nut welded on the end. This is the same size as my stabilizer jacks and the BAL scissor stype wheel chock. This means I can use the DeWalt cordless drill on it with the adapter for the stabilizer jacks (prefered method) or use the ratcheting box end wrench for the chock (extremely slow). I can actually turn it with my hand fairly fast, but it gets tiresome when going up. Anyway, the pipe is supported by a very wide piece of 1/4" thick flat steel that has a hole cut in it. The hole is lined with a piece of plastic I glued in there with contact cement. The piece of metal is welded to a piece of angle that goes from one truss to the other at the bottom. It is actually longer than the distance between the trusses, so the ends sit inside the truss. There is a piece of this angle on each side of the space where the tire goes up in there. They have little pieced of drilled angle welded to the bottom for the safety chain arrangement. By having the ends sit inside of the trusses, I don't rely on my welds to hold it up if the winch fails and the safety chains have to catch it. My welds on the ends just hold the pieces in place. The little pieces that are welded to the bottom of these angles were welded under ideal conditions in the garage on a welding table so they would be of high quality and hold the weight of 20 tires if necessary.
This next picture shows how the chains on the street side attach to the angle on that side. The pieces of angle had been drilled in a drill press prior to being welded on in the garage. Then a piece of rod was put through the holes and the end links of the chain. The ends of the rod are welded to the pieces of angle.
I had masked the chains prior to painting. Obviously I had neglected to do that prior to the primer. LOL.
And finally, here is the picture posted earlier. This is taken from the curb side. The chains are held in using clevis pins I bought from Lowes and the pins are held in with hitch pins (also from Lowes). These items are available in the aisle where I obtained the grade 5 nuts and bolts that hold the winch on. I coated the pins and hitch pins with some Reese teflon trailer ball grease to keep them from rusting.
I will point out a couple of things in this last picture. You can see the ends of the pieces of angle the safety chains attach to sitting in the ends of the trusses. You can also see I took this picture several weeks ago when we had a little snow on the ground.
ExRocketScientist,
Wow!!! I am interested in moving the spare tire also. Been tossing a few ideas around in my head. I really appreciate the time and effort you took to explain to us what you did. Thank you very much and I do not think that tire is going anywhere. I like how far up you got that tire to go. One of my concerns was that if the tire was placed below the trussed floor joists, that there would be a chance that it could hit or come in contact with something. The only down thing for me is that I may not have an open bay for the tire. I'll have to double check tomorrow.
ChipChar wrote: ExRocketScientist,
Wow!!! I am interested in moving the spare tire also. Been tossing a few ideas around in my head. I really appreciate the time and effort you took to explain to us what you did. Thank you very much and I do not think that tire is going anywhere. I like how far up you got that tire to go. One of my concerns was that if the tire was placed below the trussed floor joists, that there would be a chance that it could hit or come in contact with something. The only down thing for me is that I may not have an open bay for the tire. I'll have to double check tomorrow.
Funny thing -- what you don't see in the picture is the location of the rear truss. The original frame had some pieces of "2 inch angle" crosswise of the frame -- one at the top and another at the bottom below it. The quotes in that last sentence is because they are nothing more than a 4 inch wide piece of thin sheet metal bent to make an angle. Very flimsy. Well at one point, I had turned them into trusses. When I went to put the tire under there, I had this big open space. I did not want the tire hitting the rear axle on the way up and down, so I knew I wanted the forward truss right over the rear axle. So as I am laying this out, I am thinking OK this will reinforce the frame at the rear axle, and if I space my trusses so the tire barely fits in, I will be really reinforcing the frame just behind the rear hanger. Well it does, but not as much as you would think. I did not realize just how big that tire is, and I measured like six times before I convinced myself that the rear truss actually went 2 inches in front of the flimsy sheet metal one I had reinforced a couple of years ago.
On edit: Actually I just noticed in the last picture you can see the flimsy one in the left side of the picture. It looks like it is starting to rust. If I don't get a new trailer this spring, I need to go under there and do some sandblasting and painting.
* This post was
edited 02/05/12 06:10am by ExRocketScientist *
I'm a little pin light too. My new spare wouldn't fit on the spare tire rack (it was like the one you used) on the back bumper. I could easily have modified it so it would, however, the bumper was starting to rust out and I was afraid the bumper would fail. I had already relocated my sewer hose to a fence post cover, so I had thought about cutting the bumper off and redoing it. But knowing I was already pin light, the new spare is heavier, and I would overdo the rear bumper in replacing it so it would weigh more, I decided to put the spare underneath. I picked the open space nearst to the front of the trailer where it would fit that I could get to. There is one space forward of this, but it is between the axles. The tire would not slide under the axles easily, and manhandling it over top of the axles would be hard. So I had to settle with where I put it.
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