Please teach me about tow bars

The problem I had was with a Spridget I just bought with the shortblock in the passenger seat, trans in the trunk. I don't know about the alignment,the bolts pulled through the mounting points so there was definatly something wrong with the way it tracked. I stand by my statement BUY A TRAILER to tow busted cars! You can make the money back by renting it to your friends ; )

zomby woof wrote: Love that Morris (and helmet), BTW.

GRM style circa 1968 - Bought 4 of the Morrises for a total of $200. Built up the car and towed it to Auto-X's all over Central MD, No VA, and South Central PA with a SAAB 96.

SlickDizzy wrote:

4eyes wrote: If you tow a car with the engine gone, it will tear itself loose, dart across oncoming traffic, bound through a white rail fence and emotionally traumatise some very expensive horses. You will then spend the rest of the weekend building fence in 105deg weather and apologizing. Get a trailer!

Er, what? I've tow-barred many cars with absent engines and it's never been a problem. Sounds like you overloaded your setup. EDIT: Upon further reading, I'm not even sure I fully understand the above comment.

Sounds like he is speaking from experience.

I built permanent tow-bar brackets into my aries. I liked towing it on the bar more than on a dolley, but if the car you're towing has a bad alignment or your bar mounting sucks, bad things will happen.

Honestly, if you're not doing a 'permanent' installation where you just hook the bar up and go, it's WAAAAAAY more of a PITA than just putting the car on the dolley you already have. If that dolley is going away soon i would recommend investing in another one. You will definitely shell out that much money in PITA-factor in short order trying to mount a tow bar to every project you drag home to flip.

pete240z wrote: You can flat tow anything. I see these guys all over as I travel. It is always cars needing body work towing another needing body work and they always travel in packs. This was an eight pack and they are always heading South. Yes, that is a sedan flat towing that blue pickup truck.

I was driving down the interstate one time and came across car with a tow swerving all over the road... with the second car towing another car swerving all over the road... I passed them ASAP (if I didn't make it clear... two derelict cars being towed by something that prob shouldn't even be driving on the road)... my guess is a lot of them are car auctions going to dirt lot "buy here pay her" places

Are body men cheaper down South?

I flat towed My SAAB 96 allover the NE. Summer and winter. The only question I was ever asked was when I towed on the Thruway, was the car driveable. Seems you can't tow a broken down vehicle. Race cars OK. as long as they run.

I flat towed my '87 Golf to and from local autocross events for 4 years. The bumper cover was missing so I just bolted the brackets to the steel frame. I had borrowed another version that attached to the front tow hooks but it didn't feel as secure. Backing up was impossible but it towed nicely behind the MPV. The Golf wasn't tagged but I took back roads and never had an issue. The law in NC is confusing. My bar was perfect: cheap, easy to store - kept it in the back of the car, no maintenance. The "expensive" RV bars are probably better than the eBay special I had, if you can find the proper brackets for your car. I see flat towed rock crawler Jeeps on I-40 all the time coming back from the wilds of the Smoky's.

914Driver wrote: Are body men cheaper down South?

They are MUUUUCH cheaper in Mexico. That's where that stuff is going.