I have a tow ball bike carrier (three bikes) it just clamps onto the ball and has it’s own lighting board.
I want to make up a frame and fit a tow ball to the rear of the caravan and use it when we are towing.
When we get on site I shall just transfer it to the car hitch.
The problem I have is the electrics, if I use the lighting board I will not have front van lights or side indicators. Do you think it would be safe to make up a twin socket arrangement and use both van and lighting board at the same time?
Has anyone else done this, any help would be much appreciated.
The chassis of a caravan is not necessarily strong enough to mount a tow ball on.
Some caravan manufacturers have incorporated extra battens across the back of the van to take a dedicated bike rack.
Putting a bike rack on the rear of a caravan with bikes means adding weight to the extreme rear of the van which will then have to be balanced with an equal weight on the front of the caravan thus possibly producing a pendulum effect which may cause snaking, (unless the caravan has been designed to take a bike rack on the back of course)
Not one I would attempt on a singe axle caravan nor any twin UK vans come to that
------------- Caravanning is a way of getting a cheap holiday out of an expensive hobby
Most caravans, as Rune Caster has said, are not built to take a bike rack, especially with three bikes on it. In addition you will be subject to a large pendulum effect, making the caravan very unstable.
Thank you both for your comments, very much appreciated.
What I thought of doing was making up a box section with “tee” ends and bolting to the sides of the chassis. Weld/bolt another box section to extend past the back of the van and fix the tow bar.
I would then plate and bolt through the floor under the sink for security. I would fit chains as an additional safety measure.
I have seen these on vans in France and I would naturally watch out for and carefully load the van accordingly.
I drive a RR 4.6 and tow a small Swift so any additional weight should not be a problem.
The alternative would be to put the bikes inside the van, something I don’t really want to do.
I'm fairly certain this is illegal. When I did the CC towing course I'm sure I remember being told that you may not fit a towball to the caravan because if you did you were classed as a "road train" which is against the law for car drivers (as opposed to HGVs). Even if it isn't illegal it sounds pretty dangerous! And I wouldn't fancy trying to reverse it either.
Quote: Originally posted by allthesevens on 28/7/2010
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I have seen these on vans in France and I would naturally watch out for and carefully load the van accordingly.
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I think if you look very carefully at the ones that you see in France the bike rack is fixed directly to the caravan and more often than not the caravan is a German one, which have the additional cross members as I posted above. German vans also have a longer drawbar (A frame) than UK vans making the German van more stable to tow in the first place.
You are, obviously, at liberty to do whatever you please in modifications to your caravan in this country but you do have to keep within the Maximum Technically Permissible Laden Mass (MTPLM) of your caravan to be legal on the road. Now I'm not advocating that anyone should overload their van but you would stand more chance of being stopped if your caravan looks unusual in some way as in a bike rack on the back of it.
------------- Caravanning is a way of getting a cheap holiday out of an expensive hobby
cheers Jim, as you say, it sounded a good idea at the time. Just might get in touch with the company tomorrow and see what they say.
Grabbed this from their website:
dependent tests have put the drag increase due to a roof-box on some cars at 70mph as over 10%. The effect of a load on Bak-Rak is likely to be unnoticeable. In fact on most cars it will slightly reduce the drag and increased petrol consumption does not occur since the load is sheltered in the aerodynamically dead area behind the car.
I know behind a car is a bit different than behind a van, I suppose a trial would be the only way to prove if it would work but as I said, time to put it to bed.
Maybe Top gear could knock up a prototype and run it around on their test track Lol.
Lol. Sensible decision I think. We ran for 100 yards with 2 bikes at the back of the van and had to stop and rearrange due to instability and the outfit had been adjusted for perfect noseweight, but it felt instantly wrong. Adding a towbar to the back of the caravan would be even worse. We do run with 3 bikes in the van and have old rugs that we wrap to protect the furniture as they need to be over the axle.
Funnily enough, I saw today the first instance of a rear mounted back rack that had been bolted to the rear of a Bailey Pageant something-or-other. I know this isn't the same mounting that Bri had in mind, but interestingly the rig had been pulled onto the hard shoulder of the M5 and being examined by the local traffic plod.
Obviously I don't know the outcome of the 'stop', but I'm sure Bri's made the right decision to bin this idea.
The rear bolt on racks from Fiamma for example do the job, but the majority of British spec vans simply don't have the integral reinforcements suitable for these.
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Topic: caravan bike rack
