If you're popping air bags, imagine the load on the tires and wheel bearings!

Dennis

----- Original Message -----
From: George Goff <THX0001@AOL.COM>
Date: Thursday, August 4, 2005 10:58 am
Subject: Re: Tongue Weight, Hauling Stuff, Bicycle Racks, et al./ Hey, Jethro, Let's Make Us One of Them Thar Motorsickle Carriers!

> In a message dated 8/4/05 12:22:26 AM, vanagon@ASTOUND.NET writes:
>
> << Stainless has far less strength than steel. >>
>
> Taken in the broad sense in which it is stated, this statement is
> absolutelyfalse.  Without specifying the class, alloy and state of
> a metal, such
> comparisons mean nothing at all.
>
> As to why someone would stick a piece of stainless (SS) to carbon
> steel, it
> may be because stainless has become so cheap, what with China,
> Korea and India
> gleaning SS scrap from decommissioned reactors, or wherever they
> get it, and
> shipping it back to us.
>
> As far as mixing SS and carbon steel in the puddle of a weld, I do
> not have
> the wherewithal to research whatever alchemy might take place, but
> I know it
> ain't a good one.  I've seen SS welded to mild steel before in
> noncriticalfabrications such as hamburger grills, but, I have yet
> to meet a card-carrying
> welder who would weld the two materials and then say,"You're good
> to go,"
> especially if he realized that a 400 pound (bone dry with no air
> in the tires and on a
> good day) Hondoo was going to be cantilevered from the ass-end of
> a Vanagon
> dependent on his handiwork.
>
> This brings me to the bike on the hitch.  Please take that thing
> off the
> ass-end of your van and never put it there again.  It is a stupid
> and dangerous
> way to carry a bike and it verges on being criminal.  If you do
> not know
> anything about physics or rigging or hauling or structural
> fabrication, for the love
> of God, find someone who does and talk to him.
>
> The REAL tongue weight of this inanity is so far beyond the
> specification it
> is no wonder that you are popping air bags.
>
> George
>