Question about towing a Ghia

[Bonemaro]

Well, I'll be derned...

[helowrench]

Its an elegantly simple solution that was also used on the Porsche 924 and early 944

[Steve Arndt]

Its an elegantly simple solution that was also used on the Porsche 924 and early 944

And buses and 2wd Vanagons.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I towed a beetle backwards on a dolly 400 miles. I backed it on and tied the steering wheel so it didn't want to wander. worked great and took 400 miles off the odometer

Some areas will not let you do that as it is considered dangerous. Remember that the geometry on it a car is not set up for towing.

Even on flat towing they recommend a yearly alignment if you tow a lot. You should also expect front end components to wear out faster. Towing it in reverse is/s/b worse although I have seen some dolly towing with the vehicle mounted snookie. You don't back up a car being towed as it will snap hook on you usually within just a few feet... geometry. We see damaged car come into RV places damaged and it usually turns out to be first timers that have not been told you don't back up with a tow still hooked up.

As far as the speedo backing up I did not know that they could. In the Ferris Bueler movie they make fun of that.

[Bonemaro]

I've got this auto transport rented from U-Haul.



Anyone know of any problems I might encounter with this?

[Ol'fogasaurus]

You mean besides the 45 MPH speed limit? Wired up correctly they should be OK. Does the trailer have brakes (it should) and a break-a-way w/battery on it. Some states require this. Otherwise it should be OK.

Lee

[Bonemaro]

45. Gotcha.

Funny story. I told them I was towing with a GMC Envoy and the lady said it was listed as a convertible in their system.

[ALYKAT III]

Tells ya a little something about their system, does it not ?

[Bonemaro]

Indeed.

[Marc]

When I worked in vehicle maintenance for USPS I towed 3 to 8 vehicles on a typical night in the field, 98% of them RWD that could just be snagged from the rear with J-hooks or stinger lift. No problem whatsoever, so long as you didn't forget to tie off the steering wheel so they wouldn't swing into the next lane. Even with the ass-end high in the air, generating tons of caster going backwards, you need to lock the column or tie the wheel to guarantee that the towed vehicle will trail properly.
When flat-towing (forward) the steering needs to be free to turn a little, so you want to tie the wheel off with rope so that it absolutely, positively, cannot rotate past 180° and overcenter - that's a bad thing. Enough slack for ~120° static play is about all you want to give it, to allow for rope stretch. This will allow enough steering to lrt you to drag it through an intersection or to back up in an emergency situation without the "snap-hooking" Lee referred to, but in a controlled situation it's still best to either uncouple or release the wheel and station a co-pilot in the towed vehicle when backing or negotiating a very tight turn, say if you get jammed in at a fuel stop.
A while back when my son was playing around at drag-racing a Beetle we would flat-tow it behind my wife's 4WD Ford Escape. The racer had a locked differential and did NOT like to turn; if we left the slicks on it, it was almost impossible to pull - it constantly pushed the Escape straight ahead, regardless of the driver's intentions. Throwing some bald-ass rear tires inflated to 50psi onto the Bug made it manageable, but it was still a bit of a handful on city streets - and backing was still an intimidating operation, more than once I thought we'd folded up the towbar.

I forget exactly when, but it was a long time ago when mechanical odometers started being made so that if they were turned backwards white or red bars would appear between the digits - making it harder for used-car dealers to roll back the numbers with an electric drill without detection. Didn't do that much good, since it only takes a little longer to roll the odo forward to the number you want...at least until they added a digit so rollover takes a million miles. Modern cars with electronic speedo/odos are of course immune to such crude tampering methods.
ACVWs never benefited from any of these protective measures and are totally vulnerable to odometer manipulation with a drill - and of course they will roll back if towed in reverse too. But unless you only want a relatively small change, it often takes less time to dismantle the speedo and reset the odo than if does to roll it with a drill....even though the cable speed (~786RPM @60MPH) is a little lower than the ~1000RPM typical of a trans-driven speedo, it still takes the better part of two days to go 10,000mi in either direction on an ACVW odo with a 3000RPM drill. 43-2/3 hours, to be precise.


Back on-topic, the U-Haul trailer is capable of handling cars at least twice the weight of your `Ghia and should present no problems for your mission. Just remember what we said about tongue weight, and if the trailer wants to wig-wag on decel move the car towards the tow rig a little to increase it. Don't exceed the design tongue weight limit of your hitch (probably 300 lbs).

[Ol'fogasaurus]

One of the problems with some of the lesser expensive VW tow bars is that they have a bracket welded onto the tube that goes partially around the lower tube from the bottom (http://www.mooreparts.com/Tow-Bar-2%22- ... -AC000190/) then they use a pin through a hole in the top of the bracket to lock the tow bar in place by going over the top of the lower torsion tube so that the tow bar will not drop; a very basic quick setup. The pin has a hole in it and it uses a diaper pin to keep the pin from backing out. I have had the pin work its way out before and one side of the tow bar fell loose causing it to bend the other bracket and my buggy to go side ways in the intersection where I was turning. If you move the diaper pin (http://www.mooreparts.com/Tow-Bar-Pins- ... -AC000194/) past the first locking point and go to the eye the chance of this happening is greatly reduced. Also remember that these bars do not have safety chains or guides on them which are required in every state; I am pretty sure that this is a true statement.

it is also a good idea to cross the safety chains up by the hitch in case something happens and the bar comes off the hitch. The "saddle" created by crossing the chains should keep the front of the tow bar from dropping to the pavement and digging in damaging the tow bar and possibly both the tow vehicle and the tow itself.

Lee

[Marc]

Yep, agree with all.

I've learned to just toss the pins that the towbars come with, and use starter-side engine-to-trans bolts with two nuts, two-blocked together. Drill a hole through the bolt near the end of the threads where the clip can be inserted to serve as a "belt-and-suspenders" backup should the nuts come loose.