I just did a fill-up on my GMC & got 17 mpg towing a trailer from Miami to Ft. Myers for
a113Ycat's bike drop-off to
CaptainKyle &
SpecOps13 Dave. Not too bad.
I just had my friend make me a 2" veritcal T-Bar to fit my receiver hitch, which is rated at 500 lbs. min. It's support to allow me to have a sheet of plywood or something to extend the bed a bit as the bike would end up having its rear wheel resting on the tailgate, which according to the owner's manual, is rated only for 200 lbs. So the sheet would fit from the front of the bed, extend over & past the tailgate in the 'down' position, and the T-Bar comes up to the level of the top of the tailgate & just beyond it in the down position. The T-Bar supports whatever load would normally be on the tailgate alone, and should be able to support the weight of a VMax rear wheel. I had another system similar to this before with a 3/8" diamond-plate aluminum platform 52" wide & extending my load floor o.a. to about 9 ft. but some low-life ()*&&*&**&^%%!! stole my trailer (4" X 8" aluminum diamond plate bed) and my tailgate extension out of my yard. Here's a pic of what was stolen w/o the 52" wide X 48" aluminum diamond plate platform in-place, my new design is similar but not as attractive to a thief. Now I have the receiver hitch vertical support falling just past the end of the tailgate, as you can see, the 2" square stock in the receiver hitch has whatever length you want/need for placement of the T-Bar, depending on the load length. I was going to hang a license plare mount and some lights on the T-Bar, but the thief stole my work before I could get to that point. Now I lock everything up/away. SInce we have electronic H2O metering, if there is someone in my yard and I don't know them, they are there to (1) rob me or my wife, or (2) rob my house and are entitled to a "Stand your Ground" surprise greeting and salutation.
My purpose in making this bed extension was to be able to carry long sheet goods like drywall, lumber, or ? I was also going to have it extend not-so-far past the tailgate as I mentioned I now have, for the purpose of carrying my bike in the bed w/o having the weight being on the tailgate alone & unsupported. Today, while my fellow retired firefighter and I were doing the fabrication (he has a commercial TIG machine & loves to weld), we both sat on the tailgate, and it supported our 425+ lb. lard-butts combined w/no problems. So, I have no fear that the T-Bar supporting the sheet plywood or metal resting on-top of the extended tailgate should be able to support the weight of a VMax rear wheel during a trip from here to Timbuktu. I just wanted a safe platform which would allow me to carry my bike safely w/o having to use my trailer, but since the trailer is a good bit lower, it's easier to load the bike into it. Still, if I was able to use this yesterday to meet Kyle & Dave, amybe I could have gotten close to 20 mpg instead of the 17 I did get. '09 GMC Canyon inline 5 cyl. 234 c.i., 242 h.p., 242 lb./ft torque. Auto trans w/O.D., a 'Cash for Clunkers' purchase, Barack gave me the downstroke $, 'thanks, man!' W/ all the incentives, C for C, & GM employees discount, it went from nearly $30 K out the door w/a service contract (which was 1/2 the price of most of them I have seen, & backed by my credit union) to just under $20K o.t.d.!
