Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 22:54:30 +1200
Reply-To: Andrew Grebneff <andrew.grebneff@STONEBOW.OTAGO.AC.NZ>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Andrew Grebneff <andrew.grebneff@STONEBOW.OTAGO.AC.NZ>
Subject: Re: Towing a Vanagon
In-Reply-To: <001001c43d7d$92d2c770$614be251@Calles>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed"
>Hi Andrew !
>
>Besides being a Vanagonowner I also have a Suzuki Samurai and on that list
>we´ve had a discussion about the best way of going short trips with the
>competition cars without using a trailer so I got kinda curious about this
>A-frame !!
>Is it possible to beg you of a brief description on how it works, where you
>attach it and maybe how to build one ?
>And maybe a pic or two ??
>
>TIA
>Calle
>Mullhyttan, Sweden
Greetings Calle!
Hope spring's well on its way there at the North Pole!
An A-frame is the ideal way to tow a manual car. Most service
stations will have one, but theirs will be rigid and therefore need
to have complicated brackets made for every model towed.
Mine is sort of a heavy-duty copy of a lightweight one I used to
borrow, which I had fabricated. Unfortunately I think I will have to
have it shortened... jackknifing at 100kmh is no fun, ebven if no
damage is the result. The one I was borrowing was about 60cm long
(when folded); mine is more than double that.
An adjustable one like mine consists of two box-section steel legs,
hinged with a vertical pivot just behind the front end, which has a
normal trailer coupling on it. The other end has plate ends welded
in, bent toward one another (so that they are more-or-less parallel
when opened to fit the towing mounts of most vehicles). These have
drilled holes to take a fat bolt, which by fluke just fits through
the towing eyes under the nose of 80s-90s Toyotas. The bolt can be
secured by double nuts or by a drilled hole and splitpin. Lemme
see... no images on my hard drive (they're on my other computer), but
I'll look for recent photos of a 87 Hiace I towed 405km with the same
Corolla over basically the same route... damn, there's no Photoshop,
ScanWizard or scanner drivers on this Mac, and no room on its huge
700mb hard drive to install them!! Must get my 9600/G3 up & running
again...
OK. I drew a sketch (3 views) in Macdraw Pro, copied it into Word
5.1a. So you (Calle) should be able to see it... I'm ccing this to
the list in case anyone wants to know how to make one of these... but
the attachment will be stripped.
--
Regards
Andrew
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