I spent the last couple weeks in AK with some busnut friends I met a few years ago, kind of by chance. It's like I've known them all my life. My father-in-law came up with me. Fishing wasn't very good, at least for us, but we sure had some fun fishing, drinking wine, and working on his MC9. We got his headlights working (had a very interesting factory mod on the MC9 headlight schematic on his bus that I had never seen before), hooked up a battery crossover relay between coach and house battery banks, welded up his generator exhaust, and built a nice custom tow hitch.
Here's some photos of the hitch. He has a bit of corrosion to fix in the frame before he can use it, but I think it turned out pretty well.
nuther photo
and another...
another...
Underbars...
and the other side...
and the aluminum cross piece...
and the bumper on...
another view...
and the opposite view...
Looking great...fine job.
With the diagonal bottom tubing and already modified frame rails (plate added to side of rail)....it not going anywhere but with bus.
Thanks for sharing photos.
Sojourn for Christ, Jerry
NIce set up!!! I use the same mounting points. Instead of tubing and plates I have a 4X6 angle iorn with the reciever welded to the bottom. I have no idea what the tounge weight limitations would be, but I only pull a toad. Fuel gauge still works!!!!!
Jim
Quote from: jjrbus on July 11, 2008, 06:07:30 AM
Fuel gauge still works!!!!!
Hey Jim! Glad to hear it. I'm actually somewhat surprised it's still working, but that's good to hear.
take care
craig
I sure would like to see how the "underbars" are attached at the front end. Do you have a shot? I also don't see the advantage of a receiver; it seems to deduct about two or three inches of ground clearance at the rear. I plan to have a flat 1/2" x 3" bar offset to the height of the bumper bottom or higher so I don't have to worry about scraping the pavement on these badly graded driveways that I seem to find so often. I think the only time that would be an inconvenience is when removing the bumper. The rest of the installation seems first class. Thanks for the photos
Don
Quote from: bottomacher on July 18, 2008, 04:33:59 PM
I sure would like to see how the "underbars" are attached at the front end.
Mine are attached to plates that bolt on using the same bolts that carry the engine mounts. That's on a Prevost but MCI can't be all that much different. Maybe. They just need to bolt to something such that the bolts are in fore/aft shear.
Quote
I also don't see the advantage of a receiver; it seems to deduct about two or three inches of ground clearance at the rear.
It costs some ground clearance but the trade-off for me is that I can use three different tubes in the receiver - 2" ball for pulling the boat, 2-5/16 ball for the big trailer and the Blue Ox for towing the micro-truck. If you never change hitches then you are right, something that doesn't cost 3" of tube would be better.
Quote from: bottomacher on July 18, 2008, 04:33:59 PM
I sure would like to see how the "underbars" are attached at the front end. Do you have a shot? I also don't see the advantage of a receiver; it seems to deduct about two or three inches of ground clearance at the rear. I plan to have a flat 1/2" x 3" bar offset to the height of the bumper bottom or higher so I don't have to worry about scraping the pavement on these badly graded driveways that I seem to find so often. I think the only time that would be an inconvenience is when removing the bumper. The rest of the installation seems first class. Thanks for the photos
Don
Those are the only photos I took. Basically, there were upside down U shaped pieces welded to the cradle. I just built the bars by welding a couple pieces of 1 1/2" square tube together. The veritcal piece, welded to the horizontal piece, fits up into the U channel, and is bolted through. These braces are not intended to carry load, just help control rotational torque on the hitch.
Thanks for the details. I can't quite wrap my head around the concept as I sit here, but I'm going to look at the photos next time I get under the bus. I've been wanting to get this built for a long time.
Don
Great post with super photos. Thank you. Can you teach me how to weld? Also.....why is your mill so clean? :) :) :)
I know this is a super old thread but still relevant.
Gumpy, I'm wondering how your hitch is working out. I see that it's different than the one you described on your website. Is the mounting points on the bus frame or the engine cradle?
Quote from: gumpy on July 10, 2008, 07:57:37 PM
I spent the last couple weeks in AK with some busnut friends I met a few years ago, kind of by chance. It's like I've known them all my life. My father-in-law came up with me. Fishing wasn't very good, at least for us, but we sure had some fun fishing, drinking wine, and working on his MC9. We got his headlights working (had a very interesting factory mod on the MC9 headlight schematic on his bus that I had never seen before), hooked up a battery crossover relay between coach and house battery banks, welded up his generator exhaust, and built a nice custom tow hitch.
Here's some photos of the hitch. He has a bit of corrosion to fix in the frame before he can use it, but I think it turned out pretty well.
Quote from: Jcparmley on November 07, 2018, 03:38:59 PM
I know this is a super old thread but still relevant.
Gumpy, I'm wondering how your hitch is working out. I see that it's different than the one you described on your website. Is the mounting points on the bus frame or the engine cradle?
The one shown here is one I built for a friend in Alaska. He says it's working out great. It's mounted to the triangle corner braces at the engine rail / upright frame member. He did have to take it to a welder to have one of the triangle pieces repaired as the are hollow and one had rotted through on one side and we didn't have time to fix that at the time.
The one on my website is the one I put on my bus. It's still there and still working fine, although I have intentions of modifying it to be more like the one in this post. I typically use it to pull 4 down because it wasn't intended to carry a heavy tongue load, but I did pull a flatbed trailer with a 56 Jeep CJ5 on it back from Colorado this summer with no problems at all.
Quote from: gumpy on November 08, 2018, 06:42:19 AM... The one on my website is the one I put on my bus. It's still there and still working fine ...
What size receivers do you build into these, Gumpy? 2" x 2"??
I imagine he went with 2x2. They make larger but inserts aren't a common size and not available everywhere. Here's some info
https://www.discountramps.com/identifying-vehicle-trailer-hitch/a/B43/
Yes, 2" receiver. Those are the standard.
The one on this thread was built from scratch starting with a commercial receiver tube. The one on my bus was a prefab commercial hitch which I chopped and modified to fit.
Quote from: gumpy on November 08, 2018, 07:18:13 AMYes, 2" receiver. Those are the standard.
The one on this thread was built from scratch starting with a commercial receiver tube. The one on my bus was a prefab commercial hitch which I chopped and modified to fit.
Thanks, that was my guess but I wanted to check on what people were using. Both of those hitch assemblies are very nice jobs.
I can't speak for all MCIs but we had a hitch on our MC-5 which scared me. It was attached to the rear of the engine mount rails which are connected way up front ahead of the engine frame. Any amount of tongue weight is amplified because it acts like a lever on the front of the engine mount rails. Both times I had my engine out I noticed major cracks where the engine mount rails attached to the frame posts of the bus. We welded those cracks up each time we had the engine out and the second time we plated over the whole thing to make a better repair. But I never put anything behind that bus other than four wheels down toad or a lightweight aluminum trailer with a golf cart.
Fred