Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2018 19:01:26 +0000
Reply-To: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Towing and Rock Damage U-Haul 5 X 9 with golf cart
In-Reply-To: <20180220094936.aa1ebf988999e1b213df254c@5by9.net>
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This could be an option. They do rent them one way.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqaEiIhKCAKbjoRZ8xC76GltDZLbZA
Dennis
Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows 10
From: Michael A. Radtke<mailto:wa7zpu@5BY9.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2018 11:50 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM<mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
Subject: Re: Towing and Rock Damage
Hello everyone,
Thanks for all of your comments and advice.
The towed car is a restored BMW Isetta. I modified a Harbor Freight
4x8 trailer to load and hold the car securely with rails and chocks for
the wheels, as well as tie downs. The car sits backwards on the
trailer and the load is balanced for the proper tongue weight. I made
the 400 mile trip last year with the un-restored car and had no apparent
damage. But, you folks have confirmed my worry.
I agree that there could be various types of debris from other sources
of it besides the tow vehicle. However, I am not too concerned about
that and can afford to be "self insured" against less likely damage.
My focus is the debris that the Vanagon might toss at the trailer which
follows pretty closely.
I am not comfortable with a car cover or anything touching the towed
car. Seven hours of friction from undetected flapping cloth can do a
lot of damage.
I am also uncomfortable with building a shielding structure. First, I
am out of time. I leave on Friday. Second, unless carefully
designed, the shield could fatigue and fly apart, doing far more damage
than a few rocks. I don't think that I am up to a safe design.
I don't know about what a "big rock guard" is, but I have seen various
cloth shields used by RV drivers to shield their dolly towed vehicles.
Any of these would require considerable modification to fit on a
Vanagon and scratch building one would likely have the same limitations
as the hard shield described in the previous paragraph.
Another shield used by RV drivers is the broom-like thing that
stretches across the rear of the RV. It might be difficult to fit such
a thing to a Vanagon though.
The "broom" looks attractive to me, but also brings to mind just adding
mud guards to the Vanagon. Is that worth considering? Perhaps just
buying and and trimming a couple of truck trailer mud guards and then
mounting them to the hitch or bumper?
What do you think?
Thanks,
Mike