Hanging from my Honda Element

[NFA]

I love my Honda Element and have been thinking about hanging from a tree and the center "ring" in the door mechanism...

The Element is a fun vehicle for soft-camping...I've brought it along on winter basecamps and run an inverter off of it to run a TV/DVD for showing zombie movies in the woods...

Jamie - nfa

[trekkingnut]

cool!!!!!!!

[millarky]

I love my Honda Element and have been thinking about hanging from a tree and the center "ring" in the door mechanism...

Jamie - nfa

I never considered the center latch. Hmmmmmm.....should be strong enough I think. Think it could deal with 200#?

[millarky]

I thought I'd share this little twenty minute project that turned out really well. I had an old Saris bike rack that I converted into a hammock hanging post. I took off the original post etc that held the bikes and replaced it with a 2.5" chain link fence corner post. It fit like a glove. All it involved was drilling three holes in the post and cutting it to length. The post is six feet which gives it a total height of about seven feet. It's still well below the height of my kayak stackers. The after market parts came to about 25$.

Just had a flash . What if a strap was attatched from the top of pipe to the center of roof rack for extra support. For that matter, a line could run all the way to the front ( or "y" it to the front wheel wells) and hook to frame. That would really beef up hanging capacity.

[NCPatrick]

Very nice. What is your mileage for your Element? I'm looking for a possible car replacement, and would love to have 4wd, trailer hitch and roof rack as well. Like how you're able to hang off of it!

[millarky]

My 2WD 2004 E gets a paltry 23H, 20C. What it lacks in mileage it more than make up for in space and utility. I also happen to hate carpet in autos and the flooring is the bomb!

[NCPatrick]

I love the utility, especially for hiking/hanging, but I also drive 60+ miles per day for work, so mileage would be key.

[eflat7]

We have a pilot and the mileage sucks. At least you don't have to use any gas to to hang from it!

[JBRanger]

Love my Element. We get 26H, 23-24C for mileage.

I'll definitely have to try hanging from it!

[jeepcachr]

I too have an Element and love it. But I have to wonder, no matter what vehicle is used, that is an awful lot of torque on the hitch. I'm hoping the engineers on board here will proclaim it doable so I can "hitch up" with ya'll!

That looks like a class 3 (2"x2") hitch receiver. The hitch is not your weak point. Class 3 is ussually rated for 5000lb trailers. Even the smaller class 2 hitches are usually rated for 3500lb trailers. The weak point in this setup to me looks like the pipe.