California side car trailer hitch

[dirtdobber]

Does anyone have a photo of 1 or 1 installed.
Looking at how it is mounted. thinking about making my own.
The wiring is already there the best I can tell. There is a 4 or 5 wired plug underneath.
My trike has some options already installed according to their web side.
Rear light, chrome strip in rear, chrome fender well, and chrome passenger foot peg protector.
thanks in advance.

I'm working on a set of cruise pegs for my short legs. I had a set of mounts that I had made for my Victory XC. So I am in process of making some mounts. I like chrome and it would be a shame to just let em sit there and do nothing.
dd

 

[dirtdobber]

Someone has to know how they mount.

 

[team5150]

Here is a shot of the receiver bolted to the frame on the CSC trike.

This is the tongue that is slipped into the receiver. It is a flat steel bar.

The only problem I found with this flat bar is that is is very springy if you use it to mount a rack on the hitch. I have never used it to tow a trailer so I don't know it it bounces the hitch up & down or not.

If you have the receiver part on your trike I would go to a welder and have then fab a flat bar with a 1 1/2" (small ) receiver attached to it. That way you can use a lot of different attachments that use a small receiver rather than figure a way to connect to the flat bar receiver on the stock configuration.

 

[dirtdobber]

that is exactly what I wanted to see. Thank you. I am welding fabricator. This is a very simple project. It mounts like I thought except it uses flat steel I would have not thought that.
Thank you.

 

[Saltywheels]

Dirdobber: Team 5150 beat me to it, but I wholehertedly back what he says about the springy-ness of this attachment. I modified this tongue by bolting on a hitch receiver & carried an ATV style rack (abt 30#) + less than 20# of luggage. By the time I had 300 miles on it, on the first trip, I had cars honking me to get my attention!! the darn hitch had gently bent without scraping the deck!! Fortunately we were just about home. Had a friend weld a full length stiffener under the tongue & now it's fine! The hitch receiver mod allows me to carry the rack when I want, which is most of the time on multi-day trips; or un-bolt it & use it as a ball-end to tow my trailer.

 

[Saltywheels]

Gee Team...your sure keep yr underside clean. Gota see mine...yuk!! Give me a call or p/m me some day,& we can go for a ride. Rgds Ghalib

 

[dirtdobber]

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<img src="images/misc/quote_icon.png" alt="Quote" /> Originally Posted by <strong>Saltywheels</strong>
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<div class="message">Dirdobber: Team 5150 beat me to it, but I wholehertedly back what he says about the springy-ness of this attachment. I modified this tongue by bolting on a hitch receiver & carried an ATV style rack (abt 30#) + less than 20# of luggage. By the time I had 300 miles on it, on the first trip, I had cars honking me to get my attention!! the darn hitch had gently bent without scraping the deck!! Fortunately we were just about home. Had a friend weld a full length stiffener under the tongue & now it's fine! The hitch receiver mod allows me to carry the rack when I want, which is most of the time on multi-day trips; or un-bolt it & use it as a ball-end to tow my trailer.</div>

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</div>What rack are you using?<br />
A 30 lb rack is a over kill, then add 20 lbs of stuff , that's a lot of hung weight on a long run like that. The packit rack is about 8 lbs maybe.<br />
I was going to make a rack that fits the packit bag and use only the frame work. I will make my own hitch.<br />
CSC claims they have had no complaints on the hitch flexing. They also said it was good for 50 lbs tongue weight.<br />
Guess I will find out.<br />
What bent the tongue or the frame of the hitch?<br />
I will make my own hitch so it will slip in out of the frame.

Probably use 2 or 1.75 inch thick wall square tubing and add a flat mount for the frame.<br />
<br />
Has to be the length of the flat hitch, I can solve that.

 

[dirtdobber]

I ordered the hitch and will make some changes to eliminate the flexing.
I will post what I find. I have used flat steel hitches on my van and truck and have never had any flexing. I am wondering if they are using spring steel, or cold roll steel. Long stems will cause flexing. The more the bends the more possible flexing can occur

 

[team5150]

The stock CSC tongue flexes like a car spring with any weight on a rack - even just the weight of the rack made it bounce dangerously.<br /><br /><br />
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We took a 2000 mile trip through southern Utah & AZ last month and we originally were going to use a rack that I fabbed but the 30 lbs of weight (rack & load) was way to much for the springy CSC tongue.<br /><br /><br />
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I fabbed a flat piece of steel to a 2" square standard receiver so that it fits into the CSC receiver and it worked great. It didn't look all that good because I was way short on time. I had to fab up pieces I got from Harbor Freigh that would raise the receiver up to the level and angle I wanted for the height of the rack in back of the trike.<br /><br /><br />
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<img src="http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e345/team5150/Capture.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br /><br /><br />
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Although this is NOT my best work it was a fast way to get on the road the next day !! Remember, whenever you do something like this RIDE the trike to test it out completely before leaving on a trip. Better to find the weakness BEFORE you leave than ruin your trip !!<br /><br /><br />
<br /><br /><br />
It worked flawlessly ! I will redo this an use an 1 1/2" receiver and clean up the angles so it looks a lot better.<br /><br /><br />
<br /><br /><br />
I bought this rack on Amazon - $58. I cut in down in width because I didn't like how wide it was. It was as wide as the rear of the trike so I cut it down to 27". I didn't want it to cover the tail & turn lights<br /><br /><br />
<br /><br /><br />
<img src="http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e345/team5150/Rack1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br /><br /><br />
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We bought a plastic tote from Walmart that just fit the rack and is 14" tall. We kept everything in it that would only need at night.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
In case of rain we put in in a large black trash bag and it worked great for the whole trip.<br /><br /><br />
<br /><br /><br />
We left with the tote half filled and SOMEHOW it got filled to the top and more along the way !<br />
<br />
When we left it was about 30lbs but near the end of the trip it grew to 70lbs or better !

Some of it was leather gear that we started out with wearing but after getting out of LA and into the desert we never wore anything but t shirts and jeans.<br /><br /><br />
<br /><br /><br />
The trike and rack worked perfectly all throughout the trip. I could only feel the weight on the rear when were were going around tight corners because it made the rear feel like it was pushing out in the turn but only very slightly.<br /><br /><br />
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We weren't going to style point - we were going for utility. Here is a photo of it when we left.<br /><br /><br />
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<img src="http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e345/team5150/IMG_3970.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br /><br /><br />
<br /><br /><br />
All in all it worked great and the load was not too heavy for the trike. It did not bounce at all even with the heavy load. We went from desert to 10,000+ over every kind of road and it didn't bother it one bit at all.<br /><br /><br />
<br /><br /><br />
I would NOT use the CSC tongue for any kind of rack. Get a 1 1/2" receiver attached to a steel flat bar that will fit the CSC receiver and you will be good to go.

 

[93TrikeWinger]

CSC has gotten soft... their quality has dropped... their engineering design (ie their hitch)... and their <b>'holier-than-though</b>' attitude at the Factory has plain ticked me off. Had them do some warranty work (major rear-end issue) and they acted like they were doing me a favor even though their poor quality assemblage and parts nearly killed me and had me off the bike for over 3 weeks waiting on their decision to repair (it had less than 1000 miles on it). Then they damaged my underside unloading it... said it wasn't their fault (no, jerk...it was mine!...and I wasn't even there) and then cost me another $80 because they didn't know how a GW antenna worked and it flew off on the way home from the repair.... go with another conversion... these guys have fallen to the way-side!

 

[dirtdobber]

93TrikeWinger's
I am sorry to hear this. I have a 7 year warranty on everything with a life time warranty on the engine. I may find out how good it is but I hope not.
team5150

What you have done is what I had in mind. I have some 1 3/4 inch square tubing that was left over from making a set of fork mounts for a ford 7000 tractor. With a span of 52 inches for fork adjustments. They have picked up 600 lbs with no problem, loader would not pick up any more than that.

I should have everything this week sometime.It doesn't look that bad. I will bend the tubing for the angles. I will make my own rack to fit my packit bag.

Thank you for the information.

 

[Saltywheels]

Dirdobber: It was the springy tongue alright! Once I stiffened it, it worked like a charm. Now I wished I had just fabbed it from the start!

Team: That's the same rack I am using. Will try & send pics tonight...if my aging brain remembers.

 

[dirtdobber]

Got the trailer hitch on. There is some flex but not as much as expected. I stood on it and bounced it moved around 1/4 inch.
I will make a mount of my own. Rack weighs 10.5 lbs including the mount and bag. I took the easy way out and got the pan from pakit. 1 of my riding friends works for a trucking company and gave me a luggage bag that fits almost perfectly inn the trunk. I am having another bag made that will lay down on the back shelf and sit on the first bag. This will give about 30% more storage over my 2 wheel GW with saddle bags, pakit, trunk, and trunk bag.
I will see how it goes and post it here.

dd

 

[Eveready]

You guys need to go into business with that receiver hitch for CSC's. I am trying to make one now. Trying to keep from buying a trailer, $$$$. Did you ever hit high center?

 

[dirtdobber]

I just finished the rack hitch. I made it so I can use different racks. I will post photos tomorrow. I just need to drill 2 sets of holes and add weld my lock in place.

stay at it you will succeed.