Wanting to tow pick-up or auto with rear on the Dolley??? Is it safe and legal???
only issue I can see with this is making sure the steering is secured straight ahead, otherwise it will dog track.
Wow, I was just getting ready to ask the same question. I have always pulled 4 down, but my Durango is out of service right now and I am forced to tow the PT Cruiser. Will be picking up a used Acme dolly tomorrow. Here is the data on the unit:
http://cartowdolly.com/eze-tow-dolly/ (http://cartowdolly.com/eze-tow-dolly/)
Pulling the PT should be no problem as it is front wheel drive. However, I would like to tow my '56 Chevy to a car event this year and that would dictate pulling the car backwards (car is lowered a bit and dropping the driveshaft would not be a lot of fun).
There have been threads in the past about issues with "toe-in" when pulling the car backwards (tow-in now becomes tow-out).
As I recall, the consensus was that folks who did it had no problem, but I would hope that folk with "real world" experience towing a car backwards would jump in.
Jim
Many years i remember towing from the rear with a tow truck so i would not take the drive shaft aloose... not burn the trans....
Who was it a few years ago that was towing a car backwards and had it come loose and run into a streetsweeper?
not me ... If you leave the trans in park it wont roll ....
Watch the weight limits on the dollies if towing a larger vehicle - typical payload is around 2800 lbs on the dolly itself.
Brian
I have a very healthy tow dolly and a couple of trailers for towing cars and equipment. The last time i went to get a packard, i decided to tow it with the tow dolly instead of taking the car trailer. So i drove the 200 miles, towing the car backwards and was most of the way back to home when one of the dolly wheels cracked. I am pretty sure that even though the car was towing straight and not crabbing at all, that the thing was creating excessive side loads on the dolly wheels as the car back there would sway more then if it were towed with the rear wheels down. and the steering wheel was tied down of course. so i have not towed heavy cars backwards with a dolly since then. just my experience.
Good conversation. I'm interested to hear others experiences. The manufacturers recommend against towing backward though. For instance, the Demco Kar Kaddy manual states: "drive vehicle onto platform FRONT FORWARD. (Any vehicle mounted on tow dolly must be mounted with front of the vehicle facing forward.)". My Stehl Tow had a similar admonishment.
In my research I found that the only people who recommend towing a rear wheel drive car backwards on a tow dolly are about half the people who tried it - the ones that didn't have a disaster, or even a smallish problem. Half the stories you find say it worked great, half said tried it didn't like it, stopped doing it, never tried again. NO manufacturer or rental agency says it's OK, they all forbid it.
My problem with it is the car will naturally want to self steer - the castor on the steer wheels wants to force them to full lock one way or the other. Add in any toe-out on the alignment ( toe-in going fowards is toe-out going backwards, obviously) and that also causes a bit of self steering. Add to those two the difficulty in getting the steering truly locked and there is going to be some steering happening, no question - impossible to stop it all. Add to all that the relative strength/weakness of the steering column lock mechanism and you start to question if depending on that, or taking the risk of breaking that hard to fix piece is a good idea. What if you break the steering lock so that it can't be released? Be a total PITA to have a vehicle in a campground that you can't steer any more...
Brian
I was in AZ and someone was towing a small pickup truck with the rear wheels on a dolly. That truck was all over the road. They kept going like they were oblivious to it? If they looked in the mirror they had to see it.
JIm
I think there seem to be ample reasons to make the practice questionable. I would call the manufacturer of the dolly and try to speak to someone in tech/engineering to get the right answer and, more importantly, an explanation of the reasoning.
"Anything with a steering colum lock is too new" ;D
some 40ish fords an exception...
Quote from: jjrbus on May 04, 2012, 07:41:54 AM
I was in AZ and someone was towing a small pickup truck with the rear wheels on a dolly. That truck was all over the road. They kept going like they were oblivious to it? If they looked in the mirror they had to see it.
JIm
Jim, was that in January, I saw a small truck being towed when I was down there. It was really swaying, If they couldn't see it they must have felt it.
My experience with a tow dolly is it's a pain to store when you get to your location, also if you get in a tough turn around spot unhooking everything to back up is a lot of trouble compared to just unhooking the car.
Swaying? The one I saw was moving about 3' off center or 6' side to side. If I did a video and put it on You Tube people would say it was faked!
Do not trust steering wheel locks, seen them jump and dog track, wacks mail boxes/cars, etc.
Did it both ways, plus drove a towtruck in the 80's, those towed front wheels down needed sterring wheel tied.
I have in mind that there might be a difference between towing backwards and front down with a tow truck, probably lower speeds and pretty short distances, compared to 70 mph on a freeway for 600 miles in a day...
I think there's no question that you can do this, and do it with reasonable safety, but can you do it as a matter of course, hook up and roll the way you can when you use the equipment the way it was intended to be used?
Brian
Did you look into a drive shaft disconnect ? yes big $$$ and the shifter cable is to light duty, but they work.
There are other solutions besides flat towing or dollies.
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Quote from: Len Silva on May 06, 2012, 08:50:56 AMThere are other solutions besides flat towing or dollies.
Oh, yeah! That's My Way!
I wonder if one were to use a tow dolly in a way that is not approved by the manufacturer whether a lawyer would find that relevant in the aftermath of an accident. For example, even if the dolly was not a clear cause, would it be used to show that the driver was reckless and irresponsible?
I have gone over the owners information for the Acme Tow Dolly several times and it does not mention, directly, that the car must face forward.
That said, the comments here convince me that you should not tow cars "backwards". I had thought about the tow-in/out issue, but did not think about the caster issue.
As I mentioned, I had thought about towing the '56 Chevy, but have given up on that. I don't want to put a driveshaft disconnect on that car. Oh Well :(
Should be fine for the PT Cruiser for the trip next week.
Will start to look for a ***LOW COST*** FWD car so that I don't beat up the daily driver. Any suggestions?
Jim
Busnut 83 I have towed several different cars and trucks with the rear wheels on the tow dolly with no problem. The most important thing is securing the front wheels. I used a Holmes wrecker steering wheel stabilizer,it attaches to the steering wheel and to the seat framework,etc and you pull the strap tight and like the tire straps you check often. The advantage to towing from the rear you can back the towed auto by someone driving it and you following . Do not try to back the dolly like you would a trailer,it won't work correctly. Be sure to use a safety chain on auto to dolly,and again check tire straps often. HTH, Glen
Jim, why not an older Jeep Cherokee? You can tow them 4 down, no restrictions on towing speeds or miles, the 4.0 liter engine is good for 3-400 thousand miles, you can have 4x4, there are a lot of them around, and you can pick one up for fairly cheap. ;D
My 98 grand cherokee with 240,000 miles is in Salome Az, has roadmaster brackets on it. 3grand, AC inop. I have towed 3 years, now have a 98 dodge truck to haul my RZR.
Check Hichtrader.com for toads, other toads available also.
We have also towed with rear wheels on the dolly many times using the wrecker style steering wheel strap to lock the wheels. Not saying its right or wrong, but i dont believe it to be illegal. I am sure over time and many miles the toe in and castor will play into effect but we dont put a ton of miles on while towing, so this is just my way. I will say I do prefer to use a front wheel drive on the dolly but sometimes things just dont always work out the way we prefer, so we make do. On the same note a good friend of mine owns a large wrecker company and what they use when they have to tow backwards are super large zip ties to hold the steering wheel in place. fwiw.
Billy
The cool kids put stick shifts in their 56 chevy's. ;D
Richmond 6 speeds, to be precise!
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why not get rid of the tow dolly and just tow it four wheels down with the engine running in neutral. We've towed our express van that way for at least 10k mi. only issue is fuel. we use about 4 gal a day idling down the road behind the bus.
you can buy a few gallons for the price of a tow dolly or a drive shaft disconnect kit with installation.
it works for us.
i never really considered the tow dolly thing as we had seen too many folks with issues of where to put it. Seems like the only rigs with tow dollies are those that are going somewhere they have plenty of room to store it.
my only other consideration would be to buy a trailer for a garage storage and put a small car in it along with the other junk. again, we decided too much trouble pulling a large trailer and storing it when you got to the campground.
Some years ago, I saw a guy with a large motorhome of some kind with a different solution. I don't know what he had rigged at the hitch but after unloading the car he winched the dolly up so that it stood vertically at the back of the coach.
Sorry, I didn't get to see it up close.
Quote from: rv_safetyman on May 03, 2012, 04:47:04 PM
Wow, I was just getting ready to ask the same question. I have always pulled 4 down, but my Durango is out of service right now and I am forced to tow the PT Cruiser. Will be picking up a used Acme dolly tomorrow. Here is the data on the unit:
http://cartowdolly.com/eze-tow-dolly/ (http://cartowdolly.com/eze-tow-dolly/)
Pulling the PT should be no problem as it is front wheel drive. However, I would like to tow my '56 Chevy to a car event this year and that would dictate pulling the car backwards (car is lowered a bit and dropping the driveshaft would not be a lot of fun).
There have been threads in the past about issues with "toe-in" when pulling the car backwards (tow-in now becomes tow-out).
As I recall, the consensus was that folks who did it had no problem, but I would hope that folk with "real world" experience towing a car backwards would jump in.
Jim
Hi Jim;
I have a tow dolly that I tried to tow my 56' chevy on. I found that the fender on the tow dolly would hit the chevy.
This happened twice. Once with a 56' chev being towed with front wheels on the dolly and once with a 57' nomad
being towed backwards. I also towed a 76' el camino backwards with no problem. It was higher in the rear and
missed the fenders on the tow dolly. That was my experence. Be carefull.
Merle.
The only reason I see for using a tow dolly is an absolute commitment to pull a vehicle that can not be pulled 4-down. We did buy and use a tow dolly for a couple of trips, and I really disliked it. There was even an incident where we got stuck with it on a hill; talk about a real pain. After that we looked for a car to pull 4-down and bought a '99 Jeep Cherokee. There are several cars that will work fine, but I think the Cherokee is about as practical as you can get if your cheap like me.
For your amusement: http://www.busconversions.com/bbs/index.php?topic=8816.0 (http://www.busconversions.com/bbs/index.php?topic=8816.0)