Carrying Cargo 'n Things with Our i3's...

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This is one of those backyard ice tubs for cold drinks. I think they're all similar size. I actually used this as a dog washing tub, but our house has been sans pets for a while so time for it to go.

It fits in the i3 trunk comfortably by clicking the back seat into the upright detent. I tried putting the seat back to the normal position, but found that the lip of the tub rubbed the top of the saet back, and I didn't want a hole in the leather.

icetub_trunk.jpg
 
I found a handful of breeze blocks on Craigslist that I've been looking for to dress up a french drain. These are each about a foot square and just over 17 lbs apiece, or about 140 lbs. The 3x2 grid fit nicely with a little margin. Not exactly a taxing load, but there's been talk in other threads about the weight carrying capacity of the cargo floor, and particularly in my case with the molded fiberglass Wokeby trunk extension underneath. All unscathed, minus some concrete crumbs that needed vacuuming.

cargo-breeze-blks-17lbs.jpg
 
This isn't exactly a "win" -- 10 feet is just a little long for pipe to fit corner to corner.

I used a loop of nylon strap to engage the hatch latch, and ran it to the right-rear cargo tie down loop. I need to carry a D-ring or a small brass thing to make a good connection with the hatch latch -- the nylon web wants to worm its way out if it's pulled straight down.

cargo-10ft-3in-pipe.jpg
 
This morning saw a quick trip to pick up five sheets of quarter-inch drywall and a couple of 2x4s. The 2x4s are great for bridging the gap between the crossbars. A third one up the middle would be ideal.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, the 48" crossbars are a few inches too short for tying down sheet martial -- particularly when I've got a cinch strap wrapping around the top and bottom edges of relatively delicate drywall. I've got to figure out an extension of some sort that will stick out just far enough to allow me to wrap a strap around it.

cargo-drywall.jpg
 
I'm waiting for the "mod" where Nate gives in and decides to chop his i3 and turn it into a pickup... :p
 
Ya know, Simone lives right across the bay from me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKv_N0IDS2A

Actually, I have a cargo bike I use as a pickup truck and I'm in the process of electrifying it! :) Capacitywise, it gives the i3 a run for the money.

cargo-bike.jpg


cargo-bike2.jpg
 
Today's load involved 90 miles of driving to pick up eBay and Craigslist purchases -- a drywall hoist and a 40A charger. The Clipper Creek EVSE is larger than I expected; I hope it fits in the alcove I intend to put it in. I'm pretty sure I measured everything out months ago. We'll see. The drywall hoist is a whole lot more compact than I expected. I hope I don't get home and find something is missing -- but at a casual glance, it all appears to be here.

Best of all, after completing my route of nearly all freeway driving , some 90° temps, and 2x over the Altamont Pass, I pulled in to work with 37 miles of range indicated. That's a good feeling with almost 36,000 miles on this car.

So now, the real questions: Am I really going to drywall the entire house myself? More importantly, Am I really going to use this Level 2 charger enough times to get my money's worth?

cargo-hoist.jpg


p.s. my folding rooftop crossbars are both stashed on the floor behind the front passenger seat!
 
Today I finally found the opportunity to try out the i3's built in trim rack! (Bet you didn't know this comes as standard equipment on all i3s!)

cargo-trim-mirror.jpg


...actually I needed three 8-foot lengths but the guy in the warehouse said he'd give me the mangled 12-footer and 11-footer pieces in trade for not cutting them. Cool with me I said -- my car has a rack! :D
 
I fitted 10 bags of heavy moist hardwood flower bed mulch in mine. I weighed one at home and it was 48#. I thought I could stack them neatly, but they are like handling a limp body and went in pretty helter-skelter. One ended up in the passenger seat.

The car felt really heavy, but handled the load very well.
 
This load is from a 2022 Covid project. I did three hauls of about this size, IIRC about 600# each. To protect the car's interior, I placed a plywood sheet on the cargo floor, and then folded cardboard boxes to surround the load, and finally the tarp to "burrito roll" it and nylon straps to the tie-down points.

(I've since found Gladiator Nets (link) and these are a good way to actually secure loose cargo using the tie-down points.)Screenshot (48).png
 
2.4m x 1.2m Optimist sailboat, attached variously by using combinations of soft surfboard straps, tie-downs through the rear passenger area, and most recently, using the big seasucker mount at the front. Thus far successful on 4 occasions and up to 100km/hr (that's 60 mph) - although I'd love a better solution!

20231209_140339.jpg
 
eNate said:
Love me my SeaSuckers! I mean, I'd frankly rather have roof rails, but at least my Monkey Bars give the i3 some options!
Click to expand...
Nate,
I was once about to dive into a search for the SeaSuckers, but got skittish when someone pointed out the potential concern with..."unplanned detachment?"...exacerbated by the roof-clearcoat-blistering problem (which I've still not dealt with, since it's not getting visibly worse). Maybe more clearly, what I mean is that if I were to stick suction-cups on a portion of the roof that maybe isn't obviously slowly falling prey to the blistering, but is compromised a little, might I find that the suction-cups come away with shredded clearcoat and a grand piano still stuck to them?

Do you you use them at freeway speeds?

I'd been mulling over a mechanical attachment modification, using well-nuts (rubber corklike expansion plugs with rustproof machine-threaded inserts) but I can envision some unintended consequences with that - and don't know that the CF roof is thick enough to load up at relatively small points, nor am I crazy about ending up with permanent rubber plugs scattered around the roof, even if they're relatively small. And hell, they might end up protruding through the headliner, which wouldn't be a great look.

How hard is it to get the headliner out to inspect - or, for that matter, to change my antenna? I wouldn't shy away from laminating some backing at key points to reinforce the underside of the roof for this purpose. Two kids and a regular Costco-load of stuff is a bit much...
 
808Pants said:
Nate,
I was once about to dive into a search for the SeaSuckers, but got skittish when someone pointed out the potential concern with..."unplanned detachment?"...exacerbated by the roof-clearcoat-blistering problem (which I've still not dealt with, since it's not getting visibly worse). Maybe more clearly, what I mean is that if I were to stick suction-cups on a portion of the roof that maybe isn't obviously slowly falling prey to the blistering, but is compromised a little, might I find that the suction-cups come away with shredded clearcoat and a grand piano still stuck to them?

Do you you use them at freeway speeds?

I'd been mulling over a mechanical attachment modification, using well-nuts (rubber corklike expansion plugs with rustproof machine-threaded inserts) but I can envision some unintended consequences with that - and don't know that the CF roof is thick enough to load up at relatively small points, nor am I crazy about ending up with permanent rubber plugs scattered around the roof, even if they're relatively small. And hell, they might end up protruding through the headliner, which wouldn't be a great look.

How hard is it to get the headliner out to inspect - or, for that matter, to change my antenna? I wouldn't shy away from laminating some backing at key points to reinforce the underside of the roof for this purpose. Two kids and a regular Costco-load of stuff is a bit much...
Click to expand...
I would recommend not putting the kids on the roof rack. Seriously, a couple comments:
1) I drilled holes in the steel roof of my Plymouth laser and mounted a conduit A-frame on 4 3/16 bolts with fender washers and rubber gaskets. It carried two canoes at 85 mph. The gap between the roof and liner concealed the bolts.
2) In college (engineering) I developed load applicators for sandwich composites, which fail in-plane loading through localized wavy buckling. A successful mount will both not exceed the shear strength of the base material, and taper off at the perimeter to eliminate stepwise load change. Translated: use a pad that’s has a diameter at least 50x the base thickness and attaches through a compliant (soft rubber) layer.
3) BMW does not recommend any roof rack, casting doubt on the strength of the roof above aerodynamic loads. Composite material enables strength/load matching better than steel. I thought about suckers for transporting my canoe, but opted instead to lash it down on foam blocks with winched straps through the door openings, protecting the door seals with folded newspapers. This captures the full roll-over safe frame strength. But I still don’t exceed 45 mph.
4) Attaching stuff to the outside mucks up your drag coefficient, so opt for an easily removable method when not in use.
 

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