How are you supposed to move a 5m + Ski?

[laneends]

Any legality issues with a made up frame? As its almost like a homemade bull bar,and I doubt thats legal

[Wind Waker]

I don't think so. Pop into a bunnings and take a look at the front of the rental utes. Looks pretty agricultural and I'm sure most of us could do better.

[shane]

Any legality issues with a made up frame? As its almost like a homemade bull bar,and I doubt thats legal

No, it's not designed to be a bull bar. It just needs to add vertical load stability at the front.

[laneends]

Any legality issues with a made up frame? As its almost like a homemade bull bar,and I doubt thats legal

No, it's not designed to be a bull bar. It just needs to add vertical load stability at the front.

Any pics of the set up?

[shane]

Any pics of the set up?

Sorry no, this was 15 years ago when I was transporting hanggliders around. Front racks are pretty common in that sport and I made a new one for each car I had. Some of the more basic ones I saw others use were just an extended 'H' made of PVC tied to the front bumper and then the load. Remember it's mainly there to support a vertical load. Lateral support is provided by the main roof racks and transferred to the front rack when it's tied to the load. I made ones that clamped to nudge bars and also ones with arms that extended under the car to attach to the bull bar/nudge bar support points on the frame. Some 25mm SHS, a couple of bolts and a welder can see a custom front rack made up in an hour or two.

[Smish]

A friend of mine carries a 5m sit-in sea kayak on a Peugeot 208. He's an engineer and doesn't bother with any extra T/H supports, he's never been pulled over so I wouldn't worry too much. I think a flag is a good symbolic gesture if nothing else. It's still not entirely clear to me what the law considers is the back of the vehicle, I was playing it safe and working from the rear axle.

Cheers,

Smish

[Wind Waker]

What if he was a bin collector? Can he have more overhang? What if he is a rocket scientist?

Overhang aside, that is some serious strain on that ski on a small support area for a long trip at high speed on average roads. Support it or risk making a trip to find out you have a crack... that would suck

[laneends]

One of the problems when car wagons use rail mounted bars is that that they are not centrally mounted on the car, rails do not go far forward due to roof curvature. So just relying on them for support with COG of load between bars has the load placed towards rear of vehicle, hence The major advantage of having a forward load point so at least you can get ir located more centrally over the vehicle

[Kingo]

I got the quote back from AMA today and its $600 plus delivery for nudge bar alone so with the H frame it is going to cost the best part of a trailer.

You don't need a nudge bar to fit a front rack. I made up a couple of front T-bars to the left side only that mounted directly onto the same support point that a nudge bar would attach to. These were typically bolted on when I need it but you could come up with a quick release design.

Be very careful if you make your own/have one made, I went down this road recently with a welder I had on site, I asked him to make up a front tee shaped rack for the front of my ute attached to the nudge/bullbar point and his response was that he wouldnt touch it because he didnt want me to call him up complaining of 2 black eyes and a broken nose because it makes your airbags go off while you are driving.
If you look at the commercially available h/t racks they are attached to a nudge bar because they need to be able to move separately from the vehicle so are attached to the nudge bar by a way of a sleeve that they sit in.

[shane]

I expect the issue with air bags would be the calibration of their sensors based on a certain degree of deceleration. Cars are built with a crumple zone at the front to extend deceleration in an impact and the air bag sensor is calibrated for this. Fitting an uncertified bull bar can potentially cause a much sharper deceleration/impact that could set of an airbag at a much lower impact than designed. It's unlikely to go off when you're just driving along but bumping into something could cause it to go off when it otherwise wouldn't. The major bull/nudge bar get their products certified to not affect the sensors on a particular car so using one of these to mount off is the safest path. The other option would be to make a front rack that attaches through the grill, above the bumper or similar so it doesn't protrude forward of the bumper and so won't be involved in an impact that could inadvertently affect the air bag sensor.