non-camaro question, trailer hitch reducers???

[spunger]

Heya guys, got a ?

My girl has a 1994 toyota 4runner with a 2" trailer hitch reciver. I bought a bike rack for it and it wobbles a little bit. Well, almost to the point where it may round it off.

I am wondering if there's any inserts you can buy for them to make the trailer bike rack fit in their more snugly. I have spent over an hour searching online and have had no luck. Maybe a piece of square steel? Some sort of shims? I am running out of things to search for.

Plese help me out,
Chris

[BillyCobin]

I am having a very hard time imagining this. I sold auto parts and accessories for a few years, and handled a lot of hitch parts. Let me make sure I am envisioning this correctly.

You bought a bike carrier that slides inside of a 2" reciever, but it wobbles to the point where it is going to round itself off inside of the reciever? Did you put the pin through the reciever to hold the bike rack in there? I would think that you would have to or it would slide right out while on the road. And if you did that, the pin would defintaly reduce the amount of play between the bike rack and reciever. If the pin is in there, wouldn't it be impossible for it to round itself off?

There are only three possibilities that come to mind, but all of them would not round off if there was a pin put through the reciever.

1. You accidently bought a bike rack ment for a 1 1/4" reciever, and it is bouncing around in your 2" reciever. This is the most probable thing I can think of. If this is the case, they do make adapters for it, but they are pretty hard to find. You may have to have one made by a good local welding shop.

2. You acually have a 1 1/4" reciever, but messed up when you measured it. You purchased a bike carrier that was ment for a 2" reciever, and have slipped the bike carrier OVER the 1 1/4" reciever. When you measure the reciever, you are interested in the opening of the reciever, make sure not to include the metal surrounding the opening.

3. You could have a class 5 hitch on the toyota. This would mean that the hitch would accually have a 2 1/2" reciever, and you could have purchased a 2" bike carrier. I doubt this one, since class 5 hitchs are rated at 10,000 pounds, and most hitch manufacturers only make them for heavy duty trucks (think C/K-3500 or F-350/450/550).

Good luck.

[spunger]

Thank you for replying.

This is the info for the bike rack

Mount: 2" receiver mount
Hitch: Fits class 3 hitch


Now, thinking about what you said, I could see it being a 2 1/2 inch opening. I am 100% sure the square tubing on the bike rack is 2" exactly, but I know the opening on her trailer hitch is larger than 2" (hehe long story short, she's had measuring problems, tried asking her the exhaust tubing and she told me 2" when it was 2 1/4", messed that one up, but I drilled her on inch measuring). I took the time also this morning to make sure both were 2". They are, except the trailer hitch.

There is a plastic/metal insert in there now (inside the trailer hitch) that looks like you could either get a thicker one to stick in there. It seems either I need one that reduces say 2 1/4" or 2 1/2" to 2" exactly, or some sort of shims I have to pound in there. I have no idea, I might try calling uhaul or somthing today.

Any other ideas would be wonderfull! Thanks again for getting back so quickly

Thanks,
Chris