well took the van away to the ewen horse races for a try out ! not fun
don't know what was wrong with it but scared the xxxx out of me is a 120 klm trip for me to there took me nearly 2 hrs to do it every time got up to 70 /80 the thing was swaying all over the road like mad sure i saw the side of the van in the mirrors !
the van has independent suspension can this be a problem ? do i need to look for anything in it ? the car towed it well hardly noticed it on the back , around town but on the main road the swaying was bad
the van was practically empty had a full water tank going up but used about 1/2 up there and trip back was no different to trip up
and the roof wouldnt stay locked down kept lifting at the front ( tied it down on the way back with some borrowed rope )
so whats could the problem be , new tryes the other day so they are good
wendyv said
10:55 PM Sep 21, 2015
When you look at the van hitched on to the car, from the side, is it all level? Or is van tail down?
What is the official tow capacity of your vehicle?
What is the actual (as in you personally seeing it weighed) weight of the van?
The answers to those questions might be a place to start to solve your problems.
Footprints said
09:03 AM Sep 22, 2015
Van or trailer with incorrect weight distribution? If heavier at rear of van will cause what you have described every time. Is the water tank fore or aft of the axles, is it single or dual axle setup. Suggestion load the front of van i.e. large plastic water containers etc and test drive again. My experience in the past with this problem is that by adding 40 kg in the form of water or sand bags to the drawbar solved the problem. you may need greater weight to test on your van i suggest 100 kg.This easy test will eliminate the issue of weight distribution if that is indeed the problem as weight distribution is the major cause of caravan swaying.
Cheers Allen
dzcook said
02:10 PM Sep 22, 2015
water tank is almost between the wheels ( no axle ) , single wheels ( not tandem ) , could be a little way toward s the rear , van had only one small bag inside, have nothing in it yet ,tow weight on car is from the book 2300kg when they did the road worthy they estimated the van weight at 1900kg but original plate on van had weight at only at 1400 kg , van was level
what should trye pressures be ? cant remember what guy said at trye place but did say tryes pressure where quite high which was normal for caravans ??
and what is the normal practice with swaying someone said should of speeded up some else just said ease off and let the car slow naturally trying to use the brake sparingly
sandgrooper1 said
04:56 PM Sep 22, 2015
Hi,
Regarding tyre pressures with that weight on a single axle I would be loooking at 50 psi per tyre. We had a badly swaying van years ago and pumping the tyres from 35 to 45 made a large difference. They can move around on the sidewall(flexing) if not kept tight.
Sounds like you need a bit more weight over the front as well. Rule of thumb is if the van weighs in at 1900kg then you should have a towball weight of 190kg or roughly 10% of van weight.
Hope it helps
Cheers AL
wendyv said
07:33 PM Sep 22, 2015
I'd have thought the weight you give is rather heavy for two wheel van?
There is a huge discrepancy between plate weight and 2300. What do you mean "from the book"?
With the sort of swaying you are describing, no driving style will fix it.
Get it properly weighed, then you can begin to get proper advice about how to fix the swaying.
dzcook said
07:58 PM Sep 22, 2015
the towing ability of the car is ( from the cars manual ) 2300 kg the weight of the van is between original plate on the van 1400 kg and the new plate that says 1900 kg
think i need to look at the fact no weight in the van at all
but still wonder about the independent suspension
might look at getting it weighed properly somewhere
still wont be using it much if i cant sort out this problem as having to travel at 60 / 70 k is as far as i can see a danger on the road , to me having to pull off the road to let stuff pass , and people having to slow down so much behind me
checked tryes and they are about the 50 mark
dazren said
09:28 PM Sep 22, 2015
The weights you are stating not making much sense ? if original plate states tare wght of 1400 kg, ? and you had to tie your roof down, I would assume you have something like a 16 ft Poptop van, ?? with this New plate of 1900 Kgs, not sure what you mean ?? that seems most unusual ?? I f you can tell us Make of van,size of Van, and what your tow vehicle is, we may be able to assist once we know more about the combination. ??
For example, ? If you said you have a 16 foot Jayco Poptop, being towed by a 2012 Ford Falcon, ?? Then there is enough experience on this forum to tell you exactly how that combination should perform,?? So more info please, ! and more assistance can follow ?
dzcook said
11:17 AM Sep 23, 2015
its a bf 2007 ford wagon auto unbraked tow weight 2300 kg
16 1/2 ft golf tourer pop top body draw bar is 5 ft total 21 1/2 ft approx around the mid 80s model front kitchen ( again some discussion on age as previous owner said was 85 but motor transport couldnt find anything similar so went for 86)is a light weight aluminum frame
got these numbers off the van plates /labels and appears got ALL those weights wrong
original plate ( as said barely visible )
axle tare 950 kg
vehicle tare 1050
max pay load 300
axle cap 1450
handwritten below label
towball weight 175 kg
new plate
tare 1050
trailer mass 1250
also has chassis number etc on it which i didn't included
hope these make sense
found where got the 1950 kg on rego atm is that amount
had to tie roof down because clips inside wouldn't stay pulled down kept coming loose previous owner has pulled 1/2 the original ceiling out and replaced it and not sure is all in the right place
Long Weekend said
02:03 PM Sep 23, 2015
Hi Dzcook,
Before anybody else mentions it the Ford BF wagon's maximum towing capacity is 2300kgs with a BRAKED trailer/van. Except for tiny little cars the maximum UNBRAKED towing weight for all vehicles is 750kgs.
I tow a 17ft Jayco Freedom with our BF wagon with no problems - apart from having to manually work the gears on some of the hills around this part of the country (Canberra).
Others are offering good advice, particularly regarding the ball weight on the tow bar. Ideally, you should use scales to ascertain the actual A frame weight, but a (real) simple method is if you are unable to lift the A frame by yourself then there should be enough download on the tow ball.
You haven't mentioned whether your Golf has over ride or electric brakes. Electric brakes can be manually controlled to assist in stopping swaying.
Murray
dzcook said
04:00 PM Sep 23, 2015
wish i never bought this thing !!
sorry i looked in hand book and says towing for
manual transmission vehicle is 1200kg
xr s is 1600
other automatic trans vehicles is 2300kg
but just noticed standard duty towpack is rated at 1600 kg but towball weight can only be 160 kg
getting really feed up with this thing im not putting in $2000 heavy duty tow pack into a 8 yr old car which is worth only $ 5000 max which cant be transferred to the next vehicle
and as van has no brakes at all neither over ride or electric really makes it worse !
really thinking about dumping the whole thing and cut my loses
Long Weekend said
04:37 PM Sep 23, 2015
I should have mentioned that our BF wagon is automatic and therefore rated to tow 2300kg.
But you should be able to get a 2300kg tow bar for a lot less than $2000, ours cost just over $700 as I recall. You may be able to pick a used one up from a wrecker.
I am finding it difficult to believe that the van has no brakes fitted at all! It must have had some brakes when new as it would be well over the 750kg maximum for no brakes. Apart from the swaying it must have been interesting trying to slow down when braking. Perhaps you bought a 'granny flat' van from a backyard.
(Once I was towing a Jayco Dove with override brakes with the slide jammed. I was unaware of that as although the Ford XE wagon seemed to require a bit more pressure on the brake pedal, it seemed to stop all right. Then a bit further along it started to rain as I passed through Nowra. When a traffic light turned yellow I put the foot on the brake pedal and promptly started to jack knife. Foot off the pedal, straightened out, braked and jack knifed again, tried the third time with same results. So I simply went through on the red. What was frightening was that there was a truck at the lights waiting to turn right - had he decided to start turning on the yellow I would have been history! Luckily, the truck stayed where he was, no doubt shaking his head at the stupid driver towing a trailer that didn't know how to drive.)
Murray
-- Edited by Long Weekend on Wednesday 23rd of September 2015 04:40:01 PM
Radar said
05:12 PM Sep 23, 2015
Dzcook hi
Slow up good fellow, you have brought an older caravan but a good quality one the roof bit we will come back to.
But first the swaying from not my own, a very close friend who we travelled with a lot had a caravan that did not like to go to quick and the problem turned out to be the tyres, lots of tread, light truck but old. Tyre life is around the 4 year mark and this is where I would start to look to solve the problems of swaying.
First check the age of the tyres by looking at the side wall of the tyre there should be a imprinted label with this information including tyre pressures, year and month of manufactor eg. 2008 08. If you are having trouble understanding the label take the spare down to a tyre dealer and ask he will put you right
Now if my guess is right and your caravan is running 14" wheels look at buying a couple of new light truck tyres of mediam quality with a good load carry capacity, good speed rating. When that van was new they woud of had car tyres on it but now the tyre game has changed some what. Early this year I paid around $360 a bit of over kill for your light weight van but I did buy quality for our heavy single axle van.
Now the second problem you have is the braking or lack of which need to be addressed first and fore most as been mentioned else where your van will need brakes of some sort whether over ride or electric. I think and only think you may get away with over ride because of the light weight of this style van. At some stage and you are starting to enjoy your van which we all hope you will do, you may throw some real money at the van and replace the braking system with electric braking system but for now, get the over ride working and it will keep you safe, I have pulled my heavy 900kg cub camper and a 1100 kg caravan behind our Subaru Outback very comfortably both with over ride brakes. Brakes must be there as you have had it registered and the seller would of sold the van with a blue slip.
Next small problem is your tow bar, now that needs sorting is it rated better then you need or there abouts, I doubt wherter you will need a heavy duty towing pack. If your tow bar is a square retriever style there a good chance that will do but if it's a flat style off to the wreckers to find a second hand heavier style tow bar to save some money. The major issue here is the flat style will only allow about 750kgs but the square retrieval style will allow lots more and you will need about 140 kgs on your tow ball.
let us all know how you are going collecting information and anywhere else we can help, takebone thingbat a time until you sort the caravan, a couple of hod
dzcook said
09:22 PM Sep 23, 2015
has a brand new set of tryes on it light truck 14 in less than 10 days old so not that trye pressure is about the 50 mark which is about where it should be
as far as the brakes there arent any , have had vans before, long time ago ,so know what to look for far as override system and electric has the stationary brake system ie the handle that you pull up but there is no slide bit at all hopefully added photo was passed as roadworthy by garage , looks like i will need to buy brakes for it now
towbar is standard flat tongue so you are suggesting that i might need to look at a box type hitch ? don't know how else to describe it
long weekend it was pulling up fine behind the car
hardly noticed it about town and on the road pulling over to let everything pass didnt wander or anything
just the bloody swaying was getting to me
Bill B said
10:15 PM Sep 23, 2015
The van probably has electric brakes but you need a brake controller fitted to your tow vehicle to operate them.
If the van had no brakes it wouldn't have passed the roadworthy.
Radar said
10:56 PM Sep 23, 2015
Hi David
A great photo, like Bill I would think it has electric brakes, maybe look underneath behind the brake drum and see if there is a power cable there, the cable will most likely run from the chassis down to the backing plate of the brakes hopefully the answer will be yes in which case the next step will be to obtain a brake controller and have it fitted to your car. A basic one would be good enough to do the job on this size van.
Now the question of the tow bar what you said a flat tongued type now that maybe under rated as I am not sure but from my own experience of towing some engineer has slapped 750kgs tow ball weight on them.
The age of the car and being a Ford there would be one or two laying around in car parts recyclers or wrecking yards.
I would think the 50psi air pressures are far to high, I run our heavy van at 42psi so far last 4 years approximately 30000ks in a light van I would think much lower. Once again a couple of psi more then what is recommended on the drive of your Ford would be enough for a starter to try by test running and using the 4 plus rule you will soon work out what is needed.
What I mean by this 4psi rule is check your pressure when the tyres are cold drive for hour or so check your pressure if they are now 4lb more you will need to increase the pressure if the psi is lower then 4psi you can drop a couple of psi out and go again trying to get it right. This to me is as important as getting the weight right in the van along with the tow ball weight.
keep us informed. Ralph.
Long Weekend said
09:32 AM Sep 24, 2015
To add to Bill B and Radar about electric brakes - if you unscrew the caravan wiring plug there should be a BLUE wire disappearing towards the wheels. Blue is the Australian standard for trailer/van brakes.
By a basic brake controller as suggested by Radar would be what are called 'solid state.' They are cheapest and can be mounted anywhere - provided it can be easily reached by the driver! The more expensive proportional controllers have to be mounted at certain angles to operate correctly.
Solid state controllers operate similar to over ride brakes - either on or off. Would be OK for your size van.
I wonder if the person you bought the van from towed it with a large truck? They could probably get away with not having brakes in that case.
Murray
dzcook said
05:10 PM Sep 24, 2015
well i am stunned !! crawled underneath the brick and discovered that there ARE wires running into the brake drums so has electric brakes !!
so whats a good reasonable price control unit any recommendations ? looked on ebay and have no idea what i am looking for last car / caravan i had , had a hayman reece unit in car stupidly traded car in with it still in ( thinking about it now the unit was most likely worth more than what i got as trade in ) would i be best to just let the auto electrician install whatever he has ?
PeterD said
06:33 PM Sep 24, 2015
Here are the pin connections of all the trailer plugs. Go to this link. I would not rely upon the colour of the wires (in other words ignore the emphatically expressed blue wire.) A van of the age of yours could have any coloured wires.
The first thing you should do is to go to a weigh bridge with the van empty (including the water tank.) Weigh the van still attached to the tug. Then weigh the van with both the main and jockey wheels on the bridge. The difference will be the approximate ball weight (accuracy will be in the range +/_ 30 kg if the bridge only reads out to the nearest 20 kg.) If you can find a caravan yard with a ball weighing scale that will be more accurate, ask them to weigh the ball weight for you. Report back when you have the weights, we will be able to offer better advice then.
I would advise against a basic (or timer or synchroniser) type brake controller. They do not act like over-ride brakes. Over-ride brakes have a proportional action, the harder you brake the harder they work. Here is an explanation of the difference in controllers:
I would advise against a basic (or timer or synchroniser) type brake controller. They do not act like over-ride brakes. Over-ride brakes have a proportional action, the harder you brake the harder they work. Here is an explanation of the difference in controlled.
Hi PeterD
At present in our Late model Nissan Navara tare 2100kg & singl axle caravan grossing 1900kg we are using the older basic style brake controller with confidence in this set up with weight of the tow vehicle heavier then the towed trailer. If we replace this van with a say 3000kg van we will then look for the best option.
I would think travelling at or below 90ks in emergency situation there would be little differences but I am not qualified to debate this, only experienced by my training as a transport driver operating mainly semi trailers, one thing we did learn was to drive to the conditions and enjoy the drive.
I thank you for putting up that graph to show the differences and it may help other readers in there decisions when purchasing a brake controller.
Thank you. Ralph.
Radar said
07:44 PM Sep 24, 2015
dzcook wrote:
well i am stunned !! crawled underneath the brick and discovered that there ARE wires running into the brake drums so has electric brakes !! so whats a good reasonable price control unit any recommendations ? looked on ebay and have no idea what i am looking for last car / caravan i had , had a hayman reece unit in car stupidly traded car in with it still in ( thinking about it now the unit was most likely worth more than what i got as trade in ) would i be best to just let the auto electrician install whatever he has ?
Hi David
Good that answers that question, now for a brake controller, somewhere between $80 to $150 plus fitting.
As to fitting it, up to you, to some it simple, the hardest part for me was getting the wires though the dash and firewall. Very rewarding when you do small jobs on your recreation vehicles almost as good as using them.
There is basicly 2 types the choice is yours, PeterD put up graph with a link on the webb to go to, have a read, very helpfull.
Next is the tow bar and it want be long, a few dollars shorter but there will be a time when you will enjoy your Caravan safely.
Don't forget to buy a couple of latches for holding the pop top down when travelling. Ralph.
Long Weekend said
08:32 PM Sep 24, 2015
I had a Tekonsha 9030 Voyager installed in our Falcon XE. It worked well and I never had a moment of concern in the over 10,000kms we towed our Swan camper.
When we upgraded to the AU Falcon I installed a Tekonsha P3 (not the Prodigy) simply because it had a digital display which I thought would give me more peace of mind seeing things working. But as it happened it was installed where I couldn't readily see the display so when it came down to it the display didn't really matter. When we bought our BF wagon I had the P3 transferred across.
(I had Ford do the installation in the BF as part of the sale.)
As Radar writes, you can do the installation yourself - just requires a bit of care. I did our AU and the only really tricky part was running the wires from around the dashboard to the back of the wagon and from the battery through the bulkhead. I used grommets around the holes and sealastic. (On our BF there is a socket behind the right tail light assembly for connecting a harness for trailer wiring but I couldn't see a brake wire.)
The Voyager is 'hard wired' in although I used 'bullet' type connectors - making sure that the two live wires had female connectors and the other two male.
The P3 and Prodigy are connected via a plug and socket, easy to remove for security or transfer to another vehicle. Spare sockets with fly wires are available for around $25, as are the mounting cradle/clips.
Others may have a preference for different types of controllers - check which ones will suit you.
By the way, Tekonsha controllers are connected direct to the battery via a resettable fuse (readily available from Super Cheap etc) and are always on. The instruction leaflet/manual estimates that it would take three months to flatten the battery if the vehicle was never driven during that time. That is not likely to happen as most vehicles are driven at least once a day!
EBay have a number of brake controllers for sale, different types, solid state or proportional, new or second hand and at various prices. For used ones make sure that the instruction leaflet is included together with the mounting bracket/cradle.
Murray
dzcook said
08:57 PM Sep 27, 2015
ok just posted another message to techies corner over window winders
continuing this post have got a new tekonsha brake unit not going to try to install myself will get auto electrician to install as also want him to work out 12 volt on the brick as well ( christened the van the brick )
will try and find someway of weighing the van as well once the brakes are working will take for another spin will slightly reduce trye pressure and also more weight on board will let you all know what happens
well took the van away to the ewen horse races for a try out ! not fun
don't know what was wrong with it but scared the xxxx out of me is a 120 klm trip for me to there took me nearly 2 hrs to do it every time got up to 70 /80 the thing was swaying all over the road like mad sure i saw the side of the van in the mirrors !
the van has independent suspension can this be a problem ? do i need to look for anything in it ? the car towed it well hardly noticed it on the back , around town but on the main road the swaying was bad
the van was practically empty had a full water tank going up but used about 1/2 up there and trip back was no different to trip up
and the roof wouldnt stay locked down kept lifting at the front ( tied it down on the way back with some borrowed rope )
so whats could the problem be , new tryes the other day so they are good
What is the official tow capacity of your vehicle?
What is the actual (as in you personally seeing it weighed) weight of the van?
The answers to those questions might be a place to start to solve your problems.
Van or trailer with incorrect weight distribution? If heavier at rear of van will cause what you have described every time. Is the water tank fore or aft of the axles, is it single or dual axle setup. Suggestion load the front of van i.e. large plastic water containers etc and test drive again. My experience in the past with this problem is that by adding 40 kg in the form of water or sand bags to the drawbar solved the problem. you may need greater weight to test on your van i suggest 100 kg.This easy test will eliminate the issue of weight distribution if that is indeed the problem as weight distribution is the major cause of caravan swaying.
Cheers Allen
what should trye pressures be ? cant remember what guy said at trye place but did say tryes pressure where quite high which was normal for caravans ??
and what is the normal practice with swaying someone said should of speeded up some else just said ease off and let the car slow naturally trying to use the brake sparingly
Regarding tyre pressures with that weight on a single axle I would be loooking at 50 psi per tyre. We had a badly swaying van years ago and pumping the tyres from 35 to 45 made a large difference. They can move around on the sidewall(flexing) if not kept tight.
Sounds like you need a bit more weight over the front as well. Rule of thumb is if the van weighs in at 1900kg then you should have a towball weight of 190kg or roughly 10% of van weight.
Hope it helps
Cheers AL
There is a huge discrepancy between plate weight and 2300. What do you mean "from the book"?
With the sort of swaying you are describing, no driving style will fix it.
Get it properly weighed, then you can begin to get proper advice about how to fix the swaying.
think i need to look at the fact no weight in the van at all
but still wonder about the independent suspension
might look at getting it weighed properly somewhere
still wont be using it much if i cant sort out this problem as having to travel at 60 / 70 k is as far as i can see a danger on the road , to me having to pull off the road to let stuff pass , and people having to slow down so much behind me
checked tryes and they are about the 50 mark
The weights you are stating not making much sense ? if original plate states tare wght of 1400 kg, ? and you had to tie your roof down, I would assume you have something like a 16 ft Poptop van, ?? with this New plate of 1900 Kgs, not sure what you mean ?? that seems most unusual ?? I f you can tell us Make of van,size of Van, and what your tow vehicle is, we may be able to assist once we know more about the combination. ??
For example, ? If you said you have a 16 foot Jayco Poptop, being towed by a 2012 Ford Falcon, ?? Then there is enough experience on this forum to tell you exactly how that combination should perform,?? So more info please, ! and more assistance can follow ?
16 1/2 ft golf tourer pop top body draw bar is 5 ft total 21 1/2 ft approx around the mid 80s model front kitchen ( again some discussion on age as previous owner said was 85 but motor transport couldnt find anything similar so went for 86)is a light weight aluminum frame
got these numbers off the van plates /labels and appears got ALL those weights wrong
original plate ( as said barely visible )
axle tare 950 kg
vehicle tare 1050
max pay load 300
axle cap 1450
handwritten below label
towball weight 175 kg
new plate
tare 1050
trailer mass 1250
also has chassis number etc on it which i didn't included
hope these make sense
found where got the 1950 kg on rego atm is that amount
had to tie roof down because clips inside wouldn't stay pulled down kept coming loose previous owner has pulled 1/2 the original ceiling out and replaced it and not sure is all in the right place
Before anybody else mentions it the Ford BF wagon's maximum towing capacity is 2300kgs with a BRAKED trailer/van. Except for tiny little cars the maximum UNBRAKED towing weight for all vehicles is 750kgs.
I tow a 17ft Jayco Freedom with our BF wagon with no problems - apart from having to manually work the gears on some of the hills around this part of the country (Canberra).
Others are offering good advice, particularly regarding the ball weight on the tow bar. Ideally, you should use scales to ascertain the actual A frame weight, but a (real) simple method is if you are unable to lift the A frame by yourself then there should be enough download on the tow ball.
You haven't mentioned whether your Golf has over ride or electric brakes. Electric brakes can be manually controlled to assist in stopping swaying.
Murray
sorry i looked in hand book and says towing for
manual transmission vehicle is 1200kg
xr s is 1600
other automatic trans vehicles is 2300kg
but just noticed standard duty towpack is rated at 1600 kg but towball weight can only be 160 kg
getting really feed up with this thing im not putting in $2000 heavy duty tow pack into a 8 yr old car which is worth only $ 5000 max which cant be transferred to the next vehicle
and as van has no brakes at all neither over ride or electric really makes it worse !
really thinking about dumping the whole thing and cut my loses
I should have mentioned that our BF wagon is automatic and therefore rated to tow 2300kg.
But you should be able to get a 2300kg tow bar for a lot less than $2000, ours cost just over $700 as I recall. You may be able to pick a used one up from a wrecker.
I am finding it difficult to believe that the van has no brakes fitted at all! It must have had some brakes when new as it would be well over the 750kg maximum for no brakes. Apart from the swaying it must have been interesting trying to slow down when braking. Perhaps you bought a 'granny flat' van from a backyard.
(Once I was towing a Jayco Dove with override brakes with the slide jammed. I was unaware of that as although the Ford XE wagon seemed to require a bit more pressure on the brake pedal, it seemed to stop all right. Then a bit further along it started to rain as I passed through Nowra. When a traffic light turned yellow I put the foot on the brake pedal and promptly started to jack knife. Foot off the pedal, straightened out, braked and jack knifed again, tried the third time with same results. So I simply went through on the red. What was frightening was that there was a truck at the lights waiting to turn right - had he decided to start turning on the yellow I would have been history! Luckily, the truck stayed where he was, no doubt shaking his head at the stupid driver towing a trailer that didn't know how to drive.)
Murray
-- Edited by Long Weekend on Wednesday 23rd of September 2015 04:40:01 PM
Dzcook hi
Slow up good fellow, you have brought an older caravan but a good quality one the roof bit we will come back to.
But first the swaying from not my own, a very close friend who we travelled with a lot had a caravan that did not like to go to quick and the problem turned out to be the tyres, lots of tread, light truck but old. Tyre life is around the 4 year mark and this is where I would start to look to solve the problems of swaying.
First check the age of the tyres by looking at the side wall of the tyre there should be a imprinted label with this information including tyre pressures, year and month of manufactor eg. 2008 08. If you are having trouble understanding the label take the spare down to a tyre dealer and ask he will put you right
Now if my guess is right and your caravan is running 14" wheels look at buying a couple of new light truck tyres of mediam quality with a good load carry capacity, good speed rating. When that van was new they woud of had car tyres on it but now the tyre game has changed some what. Early this year I paid around $360 a bit of over kill for your light weight van but I did buy quality for our heavy single axle van.
Now the second problem you have is the braking or lack of which need to be addressed first and fore most as been mentioned else where your van will need brakes of some sort whether over ride or electric. I think and only think you may get away with over ride because of the light weight of this style van. At some stage and you are starting to enjoy your van which we all hope you will do, you may throw some real money at the van and replace the braking system with electric braking system but for now, get the over ride working and it will keep you safe, I have pulled my heavy 900kg cub camper and a 1100 kg caravan behind our Subaru Outback very comfortably both with over ride brakes. Brakes must be there as you have had it registered and the seller would of sold the van with a blue slip.
Next small problem is your tow bar, now that needs sorting is it rated better then you need or there abouts, I doubt wherter you will need a heavy duty towing pack. If your tow bar is a square retriever style there a good chance that will do but if it's a flat style off to the wreckers to find a second hand heavier style tow bar to save some money. The major issue here is the flat style will only allow about 750kgs but the square retrieval style will allow lots more and you will need about 140 kgs on your tow ball.
let us all know how you are going collecting information and anywhere else we can help, takebone thingbat a time until you sort the caravan, a couple of hod
has a brand new set of tryes on it light truck 14 in less than 10 days old so not that trye pressure is about the 50 mark which is about where it should be
as far as the brakes there arent any , have had vans before, long time ago ,so know what to look for far as override system and electric has the stationary brake system ie the handle that you pull up but there is no slide bit at all hopefully added photo
was passed as roadworthy by garage , looks like i will need to buy brakes for it now
towbar is standard flat tongue so you are suggesting that i might need to look at a box type hitch ? don't know how else to describe it
hardly noticed it about town and on the road pulling over to let everything pass didnt wander or anything
just the bloody swaying was getting to me
If the van had no brakes it wouldn't have passed the roadworthy.
Hi David
A great photo, like Bill I would think it has electric brakes, maybe look underneath behind the brake drum and see if there is a power cable there, the cable will most likely run from the chassis down to the backing plate of the brakes hopefully the answer will be yes in which case the next step will be to obtain a brake controller and have it fitted to your car. A basic one would be good enough to do the job on this size van.
Now the question of the tow bar what you said a flat tongued type now that maybe under rated as I am not sure but from my own experience of towing some engineer has slapped 750kgs tow ball weight on them.
The age of the car and being a Ford there would be one or two laying around in car parts recyclers or wrecking yards.
I would think the 50psi air pressures are far to high, I run our heavy van at 42psi so far last 4 years approximately 30000ks in a light van I would think much lower. Once again a couple of psi more then what is recommended on the drive of your Ford would be enough for a starter to try by test running and using the 4 plus rule you will soon work out what is needed.
What I mean by this 4psi rule is check your pressure when the tyres are cold drive for hour or so check your pressure if they are now 4lb more you will need to increase the pressure if the psi is lower then 4psi you can drop a couple of psi out and go again trying to get it right. This to me is as important as getting the weight right in the van along with the tow ball weight.
keep us informed. Ralph.
By a basic brake controller as suggested by Radar would be what are called 'solid state.' They are cheapest and can be mounted anywhere - provided it can be easily reached by the driver! The more expensive proportional controllers have to be mounted at certain angles to operate correctly.
Solid state controllers operate similar to over ride brakes - either on or off. Would be OK for your size van.
I wonder if the person you bought the van from towed it with a large truck? They could probably get away with not having brakes in that case.
Murray
so whats a good reasonable price control unit any recommendations ? looked on ebay and have no idea what i am looking for last car / caravan i had , had a hayman reece unit in car stupidly traded car in with it still in ( thinking about it now the unit was most likely worth more than what i got as trade in ) would i be best to just let the auto electrician install whatever he has ?
Here are the pin connections of all the trailer plugs. Go to this link. I would not rely upon the colour of the wires (in other words ignore the emphatically expressed blue wire.) A van of the age of yours could have any coloured wires.
The first thing you should do is to go to a weigh bridge with the van empty (including the water tank.) Weigh the van still attached to the tug. Then weigh the van with both the main and jockey wheels on the bridge. The difference will be the approximate ball weight (accuracy will be in the range +/_ 30 kg if the bridge only reads out to the nearest 20 kg.) If you can find a caravan yard with a ball weighing scale that will be more accurate, ask them to weigh the ball weight for you. Report back when you have the weights, we will be able to offer better advice then.
I would advise against a basic (or timer or synchroniser) type brake controller. They do not act like over-ride brakes. Over-ride brakes have a proportional action, the harder you brake the harder they work. Here is an explanation of the difference in controllers:
Hi PeterD
At present in our Late model Nissan Navara tare 2100kg & singl axle caravan grossing 1900kg we are using the older basic style brake controller with confidence in this set up with weight of the tow vehicle heavier then the towed trailer. If we replace this van with a say 3000kg van we will then look for the best option.
I would think travelling at or below 90ks in emergency situation there would be little differences but I am not qualified to debate this, only experienced by my training as a transport driver operating mainly semi trailers, one thing we did learn was to drive to the conditions and enjoy the drive.
I thank you for putting up that graph to show the differences and it may help other readers in there decisions when purchasing a brake controller.
Thank you. Ralph.
Hi David
Good that answers that question, now for a brake controller, somewhere between $80 to $150 plus fitting.
As to fitting it, up to you, to some it simple, the hardest part for me was getting the wires though the dash and firewall. Very rewarding when you do small jobs on your recreation vehicles almost as good as using them.
There is basicly 2 types the choice is yours, PeterD put up graph with a link on the webb to go to, have a read, very helpfull.
Next is the tow bar and it want be long, a few dollars shorter but there will be a time when you will enjoy your Caravan safely.
Don't forget to buy a couple of latches for holding the pop top down when travelling. Ralph.
When we upgraded to the AU Falcon I installed a Tekonsha P3 (not the Prodigy) simply because it had a digital display which I thought would give me more peace of mind seeing things working. But as it happened it was installed where I couldn't readily see the display so when it came down to it the display didn't really matter. When we bought our BF wagon I had the P3 transferred across.
(I had Ford do the installation in the BF as part of the sale.)
As Radar writes, you can do the installation yourself - just requires a bit of care. I did our AU and the only really tricky part was running the wires from around the dashboard to the back of the wagon and from the battery through the bulkhead. I used grommets around the holes and sealastic. (On our BF there is a socket behind the right tail light assembly for connecting a harness for trailer wiring but I couldn't see a brake wire.)
The Voyager is 'hard wired' in although I used 'bullet' type connectors - making sure that the two live wires had female connectors and the other two male.
The P3 and Prodigy are connected via a plug and socket, easy to remove for security or transfer to another vehicle. Spare sockets with fly wires are available for around $25, as are the mounting cradle/clips.
Others may have a preference for different types of controllers - check which ones will suit you.
By the way, Tekonsha controllers are connected direct to the battery via a resettable fuse (readily available from Super Cheap etc) and are always on. The instruction leaflet/manual estimates that it would take three months to flatten the battery if the vehicle was never driven during that time. That is not likely to happen as most vehicles are driven at least once a day!
EBay have a number of brake controllers for sale, different types, solid state or proportional, new or second hand and at various prices. For used ones make sure that the instruction leaflet is included together with the mounting bracket/cradle.
Murray
continuing this post have got a new tekonsha brake unit not going to try to install myself will get auto electrician to install as also want him to work out 12 volt on the brick as well ( christened the van the brick )
will try and find someway of weighing the van as well once the brakes are working will take for another spin will slightly reduce trye pressure and also more weight on board will let you all know what happens