Towing a car

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jeremy
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Post by jeremy »

You want to use a nice thick piece of chain - i remember delivering a Landrover to have its injection pump rebuilt by a specialist and towing it with a Range Rover and using a chain. My brother who was experienced and knew what he was doing was in the Landrover with strict instructions to do most of the braking to keep the chain tight - but still some neck snapping jerks!
fortunately it could be driven home!
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Post by Kowalski »

Chain is a bit in-elastic, lots of jerks etc.
A proper towing rope has a bit of stretch to it but more importantly the weave has to be designed to damp the stretch, so you don't catipult the towed car into the towing car...
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Post by martyhopkirk »

Machine Mart do a rigid pole for £18. Worth it in my opinion for short jaunts. Just slap some gaffer tape over the plate of the "towed" car and write on it "On Tow". Souldnt be any problems with the car not being taxed as its likely no one will care enough to stop it and find out.
Was going to haul the BX back from its resting place in Crewe like this - but at 70 miles thought it was a <i>litle</i> bit to far.
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Post by oilyspanner »

I was towing a BX GTI I had acquired with my GTI/TD, I was using some Kevlar rope with absolutely no stretch, I pulled away gently across a roundabout and managed to pull the front crossmember off! there was antifreeze and spotlights all over the road, the GTI was not at all rusty, the spot welds holding the crossmember on just failed, I now have a piece of climbing rope with plenty of spring in it[B)]
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reblack68
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Post by reblack68 »

I was given a broken 305 van once and towed it the 40 miles from Auchterarder on a rope. That was an experience.
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Kowalski
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Post by Kowalski »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by oilyspanner</i>

I was towing a BX GTI I had acquired with my GTI/TD, I was using some Kevlar rope with absolutely no stretch, I pulled away gently across a roundabout and managed to pull the front crossmember off! there was antifreeze and spotlights all over the road, the GTI was not at all rusty, the spot welds holding the crossmember on just failed, I now have a piece of climbing rope with plenty of spring in it[B)]
Stewart
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That sounds very like the video with the car stuck in snow and the pick up truck, I'll have to have a search about for that one.
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Post by Kowalski »

I saw a Landrover with a trailer on the A1 this morning, nothing exceptional about that really but it was towing a Bedford 4 tonner with a piece of chain. Does that strike anybody else as not being entirely sensible?
I saw another Landrover towing a trailer later in the day, it had yet another Landrover on its twin axle trailer which was snaking quite badly...
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Post by martyhopkirk »

Thats because Landys dont benefit from HP suspension - pulled my BX back fron Crewe on a heavy flatbed with the aid of my Xantia.
Towed it a treat[;)]
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Post by Stinkwheel »

Landys are also rated at some stupid over - hyped towing capacity.
Its legal to tow a quite stupidly high weight with one? Considering how most (especially older ones) are stupidly underpowered have huge amounts of play in the steering and very wooden brakes I think its ridiculous.
For instance i had a hire place refuse to hire me a flatbed brian james type car trailer because my car was not rated high enough (although it was a diesel CX estate, more than heavy enough to tow what i wanted with better brakes than most things)
towing laws are mainly to protect us but sometimes they are a bit obtuse.
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Post by fastandfurryous »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Stinkwheel</i>

Landys are also rated at some stupid over - hyped towing capacity.
Its legal to tow a quite stupidly high weight with one? Considering how most (especially older ones) are stupidly underpowered have huge amounts of play in the steering and very wooden brakes I think its ridiculous.
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I have done this on many an occasion. My own landrover Forward control has 62hp, weighs 2.5 tonnes and has drum brakes. It has been know to pull the legal maximum of 3.5 tonnes (and more on some occasions)
Granted, it does this very slowly up hills, but there is no minimum speed limit in the UK, and provided you know what you are doing, and are being safe about it, there's no reason not to do this sort of thing.
PS, there's no slop in my steering, and my brakes work just fine (although they do suffer from dramatic fade) Landrovers often feel like they have a lot of slop in the steering, but it's usually that the driver is just not used to driving on 1930's technology (which it all effectively is untill you start looking at coil-sprung models)
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Post by jeremy »

Couple of points here:
Firstly towing weights as stipulated by manufacturers can depend on what someone had for breakfast. In the mid 80's Jaguar retrospectively varied to towing weight for the XJ6 series upwards by about 5 cwt or more when it was pointed out to them that their stipulated maximum was way below that of their competitors.
Secondly - to pick up on FF's point - car designers would seem to love the feel of Land Rover like recirculating ball steering as the first examples of rack and pinion - Riley RM series Morris Minor etc - were all pin sharp - something that can be said about few now.
Actually a properly maintained Land Rover isn't that bad but they can go off very badly if various bits wear or sieze - some of which will never show up on an MOT - like a dry relay.
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Post by fastandfurryous »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by jeremy</i>


Actually a properly maintained Land Rover isn't that bad but they can go off very badly if various bits wear or sieze - some of which will never show up on an MOT - like a dry relay.
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This is very true indeed. Many people take the attitude that a landrover is "well 'ard" and robust etc. and you just shove some fuel in it, and off you go. Not so. A Landrover is like any other vehicle with 1930's technology: High maintainence. In fact, very high maintainence. I have something like 12 grease points, 10 oil levels and 3 hydraulic levels to check on every single service, which should be something like 3000 miles. You should also have all the wheels and brake drums off, and manually adjust everything.
Makes the service on a Pug or a Citroen look like childs play.
Anyway, getting back to the OP's point. Did you get your sierra moved so that you can get the MOT and hence the number plate off?
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Post by Kowalski »

All you need is a tiny little bit of play on each of the joints in the steering linkages, maybe a little play in the steering box and a steering damper thats past its best and then you can have a quarter turn of slack on your steering wheel.
When my Dad bought his Cherokee about 5 years ago, he was looking at 4x4s, and all of the proper ones (i.e. not soft roaders) have pretty much the same set up and various ones suffered from play on the steering to differing degrees. The one exception we found at the time was the Daewoo Musso which had more car like steering, but I suppose all 4x4s have gone that way since.
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Post by VisaGTi16v »

I towed for the first time with my Supra last thursday and it did a great job. Wish I hadnt had to though as it was on the way down to Le Mans when my friends Vectra's air con pulley siezed locking the belt and maiming everything. Looks like the cambelts skipped. I towed it 10 miles to the same French garage my broken Visa was in 3 years ago on another trip to Le Mans. How ironic!! Left it there and they hitch hiked the rest of the way and got a hire car to come home heh
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