I needed to lower the height of my towbar by about 2 inches (big car , little van). I bought an adjustable hitch which does the job but it is about 3 inches longer. Are there any major disadvantages to having a longer hitch. I needed to extend the chain by a few inches.
-- Edited by grahamg on Saturday 17th of January 2015 02:06:03 PM
Delta18 said
03:11 PM Jan 17, 2015
If you can find a friendly engineer he should be able to drill a new hole so it will go into the receiver further.
He should then plug the old hole & shorten the shank if necessary.
The only issues with the longer shank would be the slightly additional weight transfer off the front wheels.
The longer the drop, I'd expect that there would be more twisting forces experienced by the tow hitch, as the long drop on the tow tongue is acting a bit like a lever. But perhaps this is inconsequential. I'm hoping for that to be the case - like you I have a van with an underslung tow hitch on the van and the tug's hitch is much too high.
I don't want to relocate the hitch on the A frame, hence the need to find a tow tongue with a longer drop. Also, the longer the drop, the lower the maximum downforce weight is permissible on the tow ball, unless the tow tongue is very heavily built.
There is also a greater chance for the lower hanging tow tongue to drag on the ground - some of the inclines on household driveways can be sufficiently steep to cause the tow tongue to scrape the road!
grahamg said
07:40 AM Feb 22, 2015
also you get the reverse effect it the tow bow is too high, the rear of the van is lower and is more likely to scape on the driveways.
I needed to lower the height of my towbar by about 2 inches (big car , little van). I bought an adjustable hitch which does the job but it is about 3 inches longer. Are there any major disadvantages to having a longer hitch. I needed to extend the chain by a few inches.
-- Edited by grahamg on Saturday 17th of January 2015 02:06:03 PM
If you can find a friendly engineer he should be able to drill a new hole so it will go into the receiver further.
He should then plug the old hole & shorten the shank if necessary.
The only issues with the longer shank would be the slightly additional weight transfer off the front wheels.
Hi Graham,
I am considering doing the same - I am looking at this adjustable tow hitch: http://www.marks4wd.com/mhabm.html
The longer the drop, I'd expect that there would be more twisting forces experienced by the tow hitch, as the long drop on the tow tongue is acting a bit like a lever. But perhaps this is inconsequential. I'm hoping for that to be the case - like you I have a van with an underslung tow hitch on the van and the tug's hitch is much too high.
I don't want to relocate the hitch on the A frame, hence the need to find a tow tongue with a longer drop. Also, the longer the drop, the lower the maximum downforce weight is permissible on the tow ball, unless the tow tongue is very heavily built.
There is also a greater chance for the lower hanging tow tongue to drag on the ground - some of the inclines on household driveways can be sufficiently steep to cause the tow tongue to scrape the road!