tow bar - adjustments

grahamg · Senior Member

tow bar - adjustments

Delta18 · Guru

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.

tempestv8 · Veteran Member

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! hmm

grahamg · Senior Member

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.