Product Review - Harbor Freight/Haul Master Motorcycle Carrier use with a CT90
A few months ago I picked up a
Haul Master motorcycle carrier from Harbor freight to use to haul around CT90's that I own. The carrier normally sells for $124.99, but it was a holiday weekend when I bought the carrier and Harbor Freight had a special 25% off coupon so the cost was very close to $100.00 out the door which I though was a pretty good deal.
The carrier does require some assembly, but went together easily and I didn't have any issues with mating it up with the Curt 2" receiver hitch on the back of my Subaru Outback that I will use most of the time to haul around my CT90's.
Here is a picture of the carrier alone mounted to the back of my Subaru.
The carrier does include a nice anti-rattle feature that consists of a couple of bent plates that are retained by a through bolt that capture the end of the receiver hitch as shown in the picture below.
I have seen where people have installed the bent plates with rotated 180 degrees from how I have shown it above (and that is probably the right way to do it :-) ), but either way the anti-rattle feature is very effective and prevents any unwanted motion of the carrier relative to the receiver from occurring as your driving down the road.
The ramp that is included with the carrier works well and simply hooks on either end of the carrier to load or unload your bike.
One element of the Haul Master carrier design that works out great with CT90's is that when you first roll the bike up onto the carrier and the front wheel drops down in its intended location, the kickstand perfectly lines up with the center square tube on the carrier so you can actually use it to hold the bike up before you install the first tie down straps.
The design to retain the front wheel of your bike to the carrier works well and consists of a clamping systems that captures the tire and rim and then a pin that is inserted through the spokes to help retain the bike to the carrier when all your tie-down straps fail and everything goes to hell and a hand basket.
Here is a picture with the front wheel fully installed in the carrier.
There is a similar feature on the carrier that is designed for the rear wheel of a bike to drop down into so a pin can be installed through the spokes like on the from wheel, but due to the short wheelbase of the CT90 rear wheel does not drop into the feature so the cross pins just serve as something for the wheels to roll over when loading or unloading the bike.
There are four holes provided on the carrier for connecting your tie down straps that do the job. Two are on the square tube at the end of the carrier that slides in your hitch.
And two in the plate at the end of the carrier used for clamping up the ramp in its storage location.
The picture above also shows how the ramp is retained in its stowed position by a spring loaded plate secured by a wing nut and also the large knob on the end that clamps the ramp up against the main structure of the carrier. The systems seems to work well as I have not had the ramp come loose while using the carrier.
Here are two pictures showing one of my CT90's secured to the
Harbor Freight Haul Master Motorcycle carrier.
Overall I think the
Haul Master Motorcycle Carrier sold by Harbor Freight works great for hauling around your CT90 and is a great deal for the money.
Helpful Links (Shop Manuals, Wire Diagram, Model Information, etc.)
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Is the carrier aluminum?
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