Thread: tow bar problems ??

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built a tow bar for my bucket as am planning this late summer to take the car to a track about 140 miles away and thought would take the motorhome as the burn about the same amount of gas anyways.
thouth i would just flat tow it as its not too far and i am not planning on making a lot of trips with it.
built the tow bar its squared up perfect. it hooks to the front off the bucket fine but the car wont steer. it goes straight fine and tracks good,but as soon as i turn a corner the steering turns with the tow vehicle but wont return to center, it just turns to the far lock and jams there .
wheel alignment is perfect on the front end as had it on the alignment machine.
Am wondering if combo of 18 inch engine setback, shorter wheelbase and tight track lock trear diffy makes the thing quite directional and it wont return the front end to straight on ?
I have used tow bars all the time on the farm trucks for years and never had them do sonething like this.
any thoughts or ideas out there ??

What kind of front end? Sounds like not enough caster. Wrong offset wheels will do that too--tires too far out.

I agree with what Pope said, and add the following items that can contribute to your problem.

High tire air pressure on the front tires.
Very smooth road surface (as the polished cement pulling onto a gas station).
A short tow bar will not tow as well as a longer bar.
Not much caster (as previously mentioned).
Very little weight on the front tires, as on a VW Bug or a car wo/motor.
Steering box set with too much preload (loosen it up) or stiff tie rods etc.
To offset the locking differential effect during towing I would try to inflate the rear tires hard and let the front tire pressure down.

I've flat towed aircooled bugs thousands of miles and one of them had to have it's steering box loosened before it would track back after a turn.

I've had the same problem towing cars with no front weight,won't self-steer at low speeds.Does yours tow ok at higher speeds where turns are shallower? In town,I had to sit back there and steer,but over thirty was fine. Just pulled gradually off the shoulders. One other thing,if your tie rod is ahead of the axle,it may be your whole problem. Hank

Tried it again last night had the wife drive the van and i sat in the car, the car tows really good at speed but just at slow speed tighter turns the wheels sometimes dont track correctly, they just want to crab over.
The front end is a chev nova clip with the wheel alignment right on specs.
pulled th car about 10 miles and then around town it crabbed over twice when at a stop and then turning.
am going to air down the front tires to 25 lbs and put the rears at 35 and see what happens
the tow bar is about 5 ft long so longer than most i have used before
am going to play with it a bit more tonight when it cools down.

Why not just build or buy a two wheel dollie? Around here they rent them for like $20 a day... A trailer would be better, don't really like to tow anything a distance without one or the other....

Hey dave i agree with you, and have the parts to build a dolley. My problem is its just another set of wheels and i got no more room now
I still may have to go that route if i start travelling more than i am now with the car.
I am going to tow it to out local track with the tow bar too cause its less than 10 miles away and then i can have all my equipment and tools tires etc either in the trunk of my 66 or on the morothome.
I am going to take a look at my tow bar tonight and have a idea that may make it work better

Another thing that can cause wheel lock at all the way over position is not having the pitman arm centered with the box. You can use toe-in adjustments to plus and minus the problem and center the wheel offset on the box so the car drives fine and wheel is straight but locks at full over. The lock-up is one tie rod overextending and has no leverage to pull the wheel back to return.

This probably isn't your problem since the car drives fine, I had it on a classic I bought when backed out of driveway and turned to go down the street. Wouldn't go back. A buddy got out and grabbed the tire and started it toward straignt while I moved the wheel toward straight and the bind released and all was normal.

Towing with no dolly means you are pulling the front sideways around corners. Will wear out lots of stuff if done a lot. Probably your ok with limited use and low weight. You might look at the front end design of the new Saturn they are advertising you can pull from a RV with no dolly and it will track.

seem to have solved the poblem , lowered front tire pressure to 25 lbs upped rear to 32 and then just for a guess i clamped 2 50 lb weigts to the front of the bar closest to where it hooks to the car and bingo not a problem at all.
the front of the car is a lot lighter than i think and since i have shortended it i have really got a lot more weigth on the rear of the car.
dont really want to have that extra weight on the bar permanently but think it might be a good place to put a easy to remove spare tire for the car

Originally Posted by canadianal

seem to have solved the poblem , lowered front tire pressure to 25 lbs upped rear to 32 and then just for a guess i clamped 2 50 lb weigts to the front of the bar closest to where it hooks to the car and bingo not a problem at all.
the front of the car is a lot lighter than i think and since i have shortended it i have really got a lot more weigth on the rear of the car.
dont really want to have that extra weight on the bar permanently but think it might be a good place to put a easy to remove spare tire for the car

Now that you have found a solution to your towing problem you might think of ways to redistribute your existing load without adding additional weight that you will also have to stop.

Some ideas might be to mount your floor jack, the canopy, or race gas jugs (or anyone of the thousand things you take to a race) on the tow bar. One of my friends mounted a 2" reciever hitch to his front bumper and carries an extra VW swing axle transmission on a quick release bracket to the races just in case he breaks.