Enclosed trailer boat racks...

[Mark 72@E]

Outboard Motor Carrier

Just thinking out the location for motors. A rack that could roll/slide out the back would be cool. lift the motor on, roll it in.

One idea I have not tried yet is to buy an actual outboard motor carrier, one that's designed to carry an outboard like the one shown in this link.

www.iboats.com

They make them in light weight, medium weight, and heavy weight.

Two problems I could not solve in my thinking were:

1) space (look how much space the handles take up)
2) mounting the carrier in the trailer so it would not shift in transit.

Another alternative:

One day I'm cleaning out my garage and I started staring at my hand truck. Maybe this is what you had in mind by going to an industrial supply store.

It's got a handle and it takes up less space than the outboard carrier. The only thing it needs is a wood plate attached to the metal frame to hang the engine. Check out this link:

www.sears.com

But I still haven't solved problem #2 above:

2) mounting the carrier in the trailer so it would not shift in transit.

But because the hand truck tires are large and pneumatic a number of motorcycle wheel tie downs may work that are specially built for enclosed trailers. I just never pursued the idea and went with the vertical e-track motor rack instead.

[Andrew 4CE]

I'm thinking more something like this:

- 10' enclosed trailer, get 10' long garage door track and some garage door track rollers. (or something similar)
- mount track to wall of trailer on one side of trailer.
- mount the rollers that go in the track on a pipe or tube that's 10' long. Put the rollers on the foreward 5' of the tube. On the aft 5' mount a wood bracket for a motor or two.
- so the rollers move in the first 5' (front of trailer) and the engines mount on the back 5' of the rig that slides in it. Make a support that goes down and rolls on the floor or lower portion of the wall (use rollerblade wheels or something)
- this would mean you could roll out 5' and still have 5' engaged in the track for support.
- use the little flip brackets for garage doors to lock it in the retracted and extended position.

I haven't looked at it close yet, just in my head. If there wasn't enough support to run the motors out the back door of the trailer and support it up in the air (150 lbs cantilevered) I could atleast put them in the back of the trailer and then roll them foreward as needed to balance the trailer and then lock them in place. This isn't a problem in a big trailer, but once home if I want a motor out, I'd have to remove all the boats first in order to remove an engine. A moving rack solves this.

I bought "Superstrut" stuff last night. same as Unistrut. Looks great and very strong. Came in 10' lengths and got enough to cut it up and do what I needed for 2 boats for $50 Canadian! Sweet.

Thanks for the lead on Nedco Dave!

[Andrew 4CE]

As a side note... you're talking about motor racks tha you can roll around anywhere. in my garage and basement I use car engine stands. on the plate the car motor mounts too I center a 2x8 board that's about 4'-5' long. I can then put one or two motors on it and roll it, rotate it any way I want. Stands cost about $50 around here.

The stand is something similar to this:
http://www.digiplan.ca/metal/dgenginestand.htm

[crankbearing]

Engine Stands

hey guys,

motor rack - I used pipe inside a pipe x 2 for standoffs with a 4x4 baseplate welded up, then I welded a square frame with 1" square stock to the pipe at a 15 degree angle to basically the width of the trailer less 6" or so. After it was all fastened to the trailer floor I cut the square tubing in the middle and fastened 3/4" plywood to each side of the square frame. Now I have two motor racks that lock in place when in motion with an additional piece of square stock that slides in to the channel between the two pieces of plywood and bolts through that hold the racks closed. When I get to a race I pop the lag bolts out and swivel the racks against the side of the trailer and out of the way. for upper support I welded a bolt in upside down with the threads protruding and then fastened an L bracket between the threads and the trailer wall with a 2X4 across 16" to catch two metal channels in the trailers wall. Then I locked down the threads with a nylock nut where I tightened it up and then back it off a half a turn to allow it to pivot.

I should say that this supports 4 44's and 2 25 motors no problem with no bending of the trailer walls or bracket.

Regards,