Who decided to put the sodding towing eye on the front axle?

[Funk]

Whilst driving back from London last night, I saw a chap in an S of some sort with the bonnet up and hazards on. He was in a slightly precarious position on the A24 - a section of dual carriageway just after a blind bend - it was starting to get dark, so I looped back round and offered him a tow to a safer spot.

However, I only have a straight bar in my car and no tow-rope. The position of the towing eye is so far back that there was no way of getting the bar onto it and hooked to mine without it fouling the front spoiler. In the end I offered to give him my high-vis jacket, turn the wheels so they were facing the verge and stand back up the road a little so that if the car were to be hit, he'd be behind the accident, not next to it.

He'd called a recovery truck and I hope both he and the car were recovered safely.

[Chimjunkie]

Mad place to put it. I'm going to engineer a front and rear towing eye for track use. Would not want the car yanked out of the gravel by the wheel

[Toltec]

Same problem with the wedge - except no towing eyes at all. I keep meaning to ask what the racers do.

[grahamw48]

Toltec said:

Same problem with the wedge - except no towing eyes at all. I keep meaning to ask what the racers do.

Mine certainly has one on the front...quite a way back though.

[GreenV8S]

It isn't a towing eye, it's a lashing eye used to tie the car down on a transporter. The car doesn't have a towing eye.

[grahamw48]

It is on mine, and has been used as such...by the official TVR transporter man, with no ill effects.

All of our cars are different.

[Funk]

GreenV8S said:

It isn't a towing eye, it's a lashing eye used to tie the car down on a transporter. The car doesn't have a towing eye.

So how is one supposed to tow it then?

[GreenV8S]

Funk said:

So how is one supposed to tow it then?

I don't know how we're supposed to do it, but in the past I've been rescued using a webbing strap wrapped around a chassis cross member, and now I've also got an A-frame with long enough pegs to clear the front bodywork.

[Toltec]

GreenV8S said:

Funk said:

So how is one supposed to tow it then?

I don't know how we're supposed to do it, but in the past I've been rescued using a webbing strap wrapped around a chassis cross member, and now I've also got an A-frame with long enough pegs to clear the front bodywork.

That is pretty much what I was thinking of doing, the problem is that the cross member is higher than the front lip of the car so there could be a lot of vertical loading on the joint to the cross member.

[teamHOLDENracing]

Toltec said:

Same problem with the wedge - except no towing eyes at all. I keep meaning to ask what the racers do.

We have a short strap looped through the eye, with the other end of the loop cable tied to the front of the vehicle where it can be easily reached. Clearly you couldn't use a rigid bar on these

[DarkMatter]

My solution may give you some ideas. It is intended only to be used should my car need to be pulled back on track and is not intended to allow it to be towed at speed or any great distance.

I appreciated that the way I have done it could cause some minor body damage, but thankfully it has been un-tested so far.

For the front I made use of some 10mm threaded rod which replaces the front nearside body to chassis bolt, that is anchored to the body with some steel angle to resists bening the studding, I also used other odds and ends found in my garage.

For the rear I used a couple of exhaust clamps and a bit of steel angle. One of the clamps fixes the steel angle onto the chassis round tube crossmember by the diff.

Hopefully these pictures make it clearer....

[Toltec]

teamHOLDENracing said:

Toltec said:

Same problem with the wedge - except no towing eyes at all. I keep meaning to ask what the racers do.

We have a short strap looped through the eye, with the other end of the loop cable tied to the front of the vehicle where it can be easily reached. Clearly you couldn't use a rigid bar on these

I have tried that, you just have to be careful not to put too much upwards force on the front lip when used. It may be the best way then if that is what you use, cheers.


Darkmatter - thanks for the pics, might be worth looking to see if I can do something similar. It probably would not harm to have both options.

Edited by Toltec on Friday 7th August 16:11

[TT Tim]

As Andy Holden has already said, I use a webbing strap cable tied to the front of the car.

A bracket and tow eye have been on my to do list for some time, but there's always something else to do.

The strop can be bought from Machine Mart, link here

Looks like this:



BTW it's less than £6.00.

HTH

Tim

Edited by TT Tim on Friday 7th August 18:25