Another reason is that I also needed to figure out how take my guitar with me on rides. I have mounted a guitar case on cruiser but when you have touring bike with hard cases that will not be an option.
So finally I found the guy who was selling a hitch for Venture. When I asked him if it fits on '83 Venture he was willing to swear that it will....
Well, somebody's pants are on fire. When I got home didn't matter how I tried it will just not fit. Let's just leave out my frustration level. Not only that I had to do some cutting and welding I also had to buy and modify the pipe bender (see post about that).
I started off by leveling bike so that both tires are on the ground and supporting itself. I do realize when I am on the bike it lowers a bit so I have to compensate for that. Basically I found that if I leveled it with exhaust pipes in back it would be perfect.
When you work alone you have to be creative. So couple jack stands came really handy.
Had to cut off the brackets that mount to the frame cause pipes were too long. That was also prevented them getting on the way when bending pipes.
It is very time consuming to take all the parts off the bike when you do the welding.
And when you just mark it and weld it off the bike you might end up doing the fitting and weld bending many times...also time consuming. I found it to be a lot easier and faster to put soaking (not dripping) towels around everything and anything that you don't want to get welding slag on or get burned. Make sure you don't get the parts you want weld wet. Now I can tack weld the pieces together and the sparks and red hot slag will be extinguished as soon as they hit the wet towel. Than take them off the bike and finish welding without worry if it fits.
Also have to attach the flat iron for the down force of the hitch. I chose 1/4 x 1 inch flat iron. Original thought was to use angle iron but the side to side movement is taken care of by horizontal pipes I worked on earlier. So that becomes unnecessary, besides makes more difficult to keep things clean.
I welded them on the bottom solid and the top end bolted to the frame where rear fender bolts to.
I also liked the idea of being able to just unbolt the chrome piece when I have to change the tire. Instead of completely uninstalling the hitch.
After that some cleaning and grinding, priming and painting, and parts are ready to be installed.
Came out nice and strong. About 200lbs man can jump on the hitch and wouldn't budge.
Now having a hitch mounted is just the half of the job. The other half is electrical, lighting.....
Since the motorcycle lighting is European style I installed the converter cause the trailer was wired for US vehicles (witch means brake lights and blinkers are using the same light bulb).
I had to take off the rear trunk. That opened the way to cargo rack. 12mm socket helped me to take off the rear bolts and just get loose the bolts by the seat enough for me to lift up and open the way for the black plastic piece. That was held in place just by two fillips bolts.
After soldering all the connections and sealing them with shrink tubing I mounted the converter to the rear fender.
I chose the left side flat iron I welder to the hitch to come down with the wiring.
Zip tied the wiring and used the velcro to keep it from flopping around in the wind when I don't use the trailer.
You would think just hook up the trailer and you are all done.....wrong!
After I did hook it up I realized that I completely overlooked something.
Doing wiring on cars and trucks for countless times I didn't think what is the blinker relay amplitude. Trailer lights were doing anything but the right thing.
I had no choice but switch everything to European style. That meant rewiring the trailer. Also this means eliminating the converter that I mounted on the Venture's rear fender.
I had some motorcycle blinkers in my parts box and thought they would look just fine.
Biggest thing was to figure out how to add another wire to the connection at the hitch. Decided to use the ground (white wire) for brake lights at the 4 prong plug. The hitch is being used as a ground right now. We will see how that will work.
Even though adding now one more light bulb to blinker relay that makes it blink faster now you can actually understand the signals made by trailer lights.
Been debating about changing the blinker relay to something that will accommodate both bike and the trailer. Also if I change the light bulbs to LED would it be better with the current relay....
UPDATE! LED light bulb DID work. Blinkers are blinking at the right rate. Prevented me from switching the relay for higher amplitude. Who's to say I wouldn't have a problem riding without the trailer than...
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