Hi Everyone,

I have a 1998 Toyota 4Runner Limited edition, and I am thinking about getting a Motorcycle Carrier Hitch rack (link posted below):

SPORT BIKE MOTORCYCLE CARRIER hauler hitch rack trailer - eBay (item 310294159764 end time Feb-16-11 17:54:32 PST)

My questions are:

1. Just want to make sure, are stock hitches class III standard for Toyota 4Runner Limited?
2. I am getting a leaf and spacer to compensate for the sag. Would it help?

Toyota Tundra 2.5" Lift Kit w ADD A LEAF Tacoma 4Runner - eBay (item 140479194120 end time Feb-14-11 08:44:00 PST)

*I am going to be towing motorcycles between 200-500lbs.

Thanks in advance for any advise or feedback you might have.

John

Might want to take a look under your 4runner, you may be surprised.

4 rip that's not nice, tell him the good news?!
You don't have lead springs, so step two will be quite useless.
If you plan on using this more often than not upgrade shocks and coils.

You can use an air bag inside the coil also dont have a link but they are available

I have a Joe Hauler and it works well with my stock 2" receiver. I suggest looking for one that has a gas can tray because the last thing you need is a spill inside your car.

You may want to spend the extra money and get a good quality one. I went with the Joe Hauler brand and bought mine used off my neighbor for $200 (who happens to be professional snowboarder/skater Cara Beth Burnside, so now I have a cool little story about my hauler!). I've seen aluminum ones at Harbor Freight for $150, but I would avoid those.

When you look in the rear-view, you can see the bike moving a good amount. These do flex, but it's nothing to get worried about. I would say the added weight of the bike creates about 1-2 inches of sag, so you have to be mindful when pulling into parking lots with a steep skirt (I have grounded the bike hauler a few times but there was no damage). I recently installed tires that are about two inches taller than my previous, so I'm assuming this will help with that...but I'm also having the front end lifted which will most likely negate the added height of the tires. If you're really worried about height clearance, they do make haulers that are made for lower vehicles and put the bottom of the bike tires above the bumper line.

I wouldn't worry about modifying the suspension for this. Stiffening up the rear end would most likely sacrifice ride quality. If you're that worried about the hauler's clearance, I would suggest getting the elevated version http://www.joehauler.com/singlehaule...ehaulers.shtml or bigger tires

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I had one of these a few years back, used it on my 4runner to haul my kdx220 around. The one I had, I had bought off ebay for like 140 delivered from a place in Arkansas. Mine came with three bolts that would basically crimp down on the mechanism that attached to the trailer hitch to prevent it from moving around inside the receiver hitch. It was great for hauling the dirt bike around and I didn't have to have a trailer.

Hope that helps some,

-Ian

uumm stiffening up the suspension i think would be needed if your riding stock...


that was on my stock coils and new shocks, depending on how many miles you have on your stock suspension, i would advise either upgrading coils or going with some airbags if you don;t want to change the ride characteristics that you currently have. As swapping coils will give you a different sort of ride all the time even when your not loaded, with airbags you avoid that...but honestly it may be time for a slight lifts and some heavier coils in the rear depending how much you haul the thing around.

but then again, my carrier is HEAVY and my bike is very HEAVY, lol

i think the best thing to do would be , just load the bike on the back see where it sits and then go from there before you start spending money.


on the hitch it's self it's just a homemade job that i put together from some scrap steel, so cost was nothing more then about an hour of my time, very very easy thing to put together and found that 2 inch square tube stock fits just fine into the hitch.

i drilled a few holes so i could set the distance between my handle bars and the back window on various bikes as well.
i'll also say that it's far far cheaper and easier to make one if you have access to scrap steel and a welder , but if you don;t have access to those things buying one is the best bet as even just buying the material to make one ends up being within 20-30 bucks of the amazon.com carriers.

would the hitch hold 550lbs (yz450 kx450) if i made one to hold both bikes?? it would be super handy.

dunno depends on the tounge weight of our hitches, i don't tow much so i don't really know that information, but i would guess that since your carrying it like this with out a fulcrum - or pivot point it's going to be a bit of math to figure out if it's good or not, it's going to be something like the distance/length the weight is from the the attachment point/hitch and the amount of weight being carried, and 450's are heavy bikes, so just to be on the safe side let's say 600 lbs total plus lets say 100 or so for the carrier it's self, so that's something stupid like 500-700 lbs right on the hitch with no pivot point, well actually that's wrong the pivot point is now your rear axle as opposed to the trailers. and since you have nearly 1/4 of the vehicles total weight sitting who knows hoe many feet from the rear axel you may start to have some problems, it's kind of tough to say with out sitting down and working it all out properly, but i would think the answer would be no it wouldn't work...but that's not really looking into it, just talking out my butt so to speak, haha

sooo yeah if you not good at math and have a welder and some scrap just build it and mount it and see what happens, do a few test runs around the block, it just seems like alot of weight hanging out back there and the further out from the hitch you go the worse it's going to get....


maybe wait for someone who actually knows to chime in, those are just my thoughts on the matter, haha

the bikes are 220lbs each exact and would make it close to the truck and the bikes oposite of eachther and tight in. i would say 550lbs would be the most it would be but i dont know much on my new set up bc i havnt pulled anything since i got it and i dont like that

Wow! I wasn't expecting a lot of responses. Thanks everyone for helping out. It really puts me on the right track. The pictures give me an idea of what I want to do. I will basically get the rack and then take it from there.

Thanks again,
John

If you were in the DFW area I would sell you this one. I have two racks and need to get rid of one.

Good luck

I wish I did live in DFW so I didn't have to pay for shipping. So I bought the rack and installed it but it didn't look right as it was tilting down and did not look as good as the pictures above - is it just me. The pin that came with the rack did not fit my hitch so I used a slightly smaller one. The thing that bothers me is the clearance/sagg - I guess I should really get airbags? Does anyone know the actual tongue weight of a 1998 toyota 4runner? Thanks in advance again.

I may be getting things confused but I think it was 500 #s

IS that 500lbs? That sounds about right.