Cargo Carrier

So I want to build a small cargo carrier that fits in a 1” receiver. Mainly I’m building this as a welding project to help carry some firewood from where I store it to my house, just a small amount at a time. I was thinking about getting some 1.5” angle (3/16”ish?) for the frame, and a piece of 1” square tube to go into the receiver. Add some metal screen or something for the “floor” and I should be good to go I think. Overall size would be about 40” wide by 18” deep. The two questions I have are:

1: how thick of angle should I go with considering it will never hold more than 300lbs (more than the hitches rating anyway)

And

2: Is welding the main 1” square tube to the angle frame on both sides enough or should I add some extra gussets or something? If needed, I would go for a 12” length of 2” flat stock and weld that to the bottom of the angle on the end near the vehicle. I would have the square 1” tube going though it so it could be fully welded to the square tube and could be welded along the entire length to the bottom of the angle frame.

Thanks for your help!

 

Sounds like a pretty good plan, but using 1" square tube (ST), which is kind of small, your wood load would have to be pretty balanced, so as not to make the 40" wide frame list to one side.

There would be a lot of torque on the ST, if that listing occured.

I'd weld a piece of 1/4" or 3/8" by 2" flatbar to the bottom side of the frame, from front to back (the 18" direction), in the center. Then, weld the square tube to that.

So, the square tube might end up being a total of 18" (under frame), plus a little additional stickout (maybe 2", at the most), plus whatever you need to slide into the reciever.

If you leave more stickout, though, then you'd be able to weld some gussets from the stickout part of the ST, to the angle iron frame (flat position gussets) It's hard to explain these things, without pictures!

Get the thickest ST that you can, so that it doesn't bend, under load.

You could build the basic carrier, install it, load some stuff on it, and see what happens. From there, you will see if you have to beef it up, or not.

HTH.

Rich

 

Well your right about it being hard without pictures but I do get your idea of the extra flat stock to help spread the load of the frame on to the ST. However is that necessary if I gusset both ends where the ST attaches to the frame? Ill have to draw some picts and try to post them.

How thick should the ST be? Should I go for solid ST?
Posted via Mobile Device

 

1" solid square bar could be used, but you may have to radius the corners to fit inside the receiver.
The flatbar will not only help spread out the load, it'll help prevent the ST from bending.

The thickest 1" ST that you'll be able to get is 1/8" thick wall. It's pretty strong, but...?

Rich

 

could i sleeve it lik you can do with DOM? maybe get the 1" ST and then a smaller 3/4" St to go inside it? I think i should be ok, 300lb of firewood is alot of wood. Maybe i could just make it 36"wide or smaller to help a bit. Ill try to get some picts tonight or tomorrow at least on MS Paint.

 

Sure, sleeving it would help, but it may be tough to fit 3/4" ST into 1" x 1/8" wall. You may have to use 1" x 14ga. wall tube. If there's a Home Depot, or Lowes' near you, they usually have a steel rack, and you could experiment and see what fits into what.

Is the 1" reciever on the front, or rear of your jeep? Do you use it for anything else?

I'm thinking about swapping that reciever out for a more common, stronger 2" reciever.

We're probably overthinking this whole thing....

Rich

 

Well its for the Wife’s Jeep Grand Cherokee, if it were for mine I’d just throw it in the back, but considering its still a work in progress....

Well here is another part to this, I looked at the load rating on the hitch and its only for 100lb toung weight. Uhhh, that’s a bit less than what I thought. I still want to make it but now seeing that realistically I can only “safely” load about 150lb on it ( I know that’s overloaded but I can jump on it and it doesn’t fall off the car and I’m 225lb, plus its only a short distance ), the carrier does not need to be as strong. I have the MS Paint drawing to give a better idea I just don’t know how to upload it yet…

 

Wow, 100# tongue weight max? Maybe just pick up a used ATV trailer for it, most of which are good for at least 500# and some are in the 1500-2000# range.

 

OK here we go....

This is what i was thinking of doing to reinforce the carrier since the 1" ST is kinda small. Hopefully this makes sense.

[/IMG]

[/IMG]

 

That looks pretty good. Try that. You can always modify it (beef it up, somehow) if necessary. Just don't paint it until you have the final product.

How tall will the basket be?

Rich

 

I think I'll just leave the 1.5" high from the angle and then stack what i need on it and strap it down. I was thinking of having a 1/2" ID pipe on the side so i could slide in a 12" long metal rod to help stack the firewood and then have a way to store them in the 1" ST. That way if I want to cary a cooler or something else I can no problem and it keeps the weight of the carrier down too.

 

Ok, last question. Hot or cold rolled steel? I know cold is a bit stronger but it also adds alot to the cost of this and im not sure i really need it because of the low weight ill be carrying. Thoughts?

 

Hot rolled would be my choice. Plus, I doubt that you'd be able to find cold rolled angle iron, and square tube.

Rich