So just got back from Wisconsin yesterday evening, and wow what a drive! 20 hours of pure driving time, let alone stops to change and feed the baby. Good thing she's a great traveler - I bet she cried less than 20-30 minutes during the 50 hour round trip.
As far as the cargo box is concerned, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that the box was super convenient and completely waterproof, which was important as we drove through two solid days of rain on the way home. The bad news is that the Tone hitch did start to lean down (maybe five degrees or so) once I filled the box with some pretty heavy stuff (two Borbet CW3 rims that I picked up in Detroit on my way to Wisconsin, plus clothes, toys, and dog food). As far as I can tell, the box can probably only hold 50-100 lbs. of additional weight without leaning. Considering the platform and box together weigh about 150 lbs, I figure that's about 250 lbs total, which is kind of disappointing.
It seems to me that something could be done to increase the tongue weight rating of Tone's hitch. If I remember correctly, the two steel plates that bolt to the last crossmember are only about 6 inches wide, and use class 8 bolts to attach. What if those plates were increased to the entire width of the cross member, then welded to the frame rails at each end? Essentially you'd have the strength of a Dylan/Curt tow bar style hitch, while hiding the bar inside the rear cladding. I'm not the most mechanically inclined person, so I thought I'd throw it out there for you guys to chew on.
In the meantime, here a few pics from the trip:
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