Hitch?

[somewhereinusa]

Before I weld this together. Is the hitch too close to the rear of bus?



I'll be pulling this.

[Ed Hackenbruch]

 I think you should be fine. I pull a jeep like yours with the same brand of tow bar and the ball on mine is only 2 & 1/4 inches from the bumper. Center of the ball is 3 & 1/4 inches from the bumper and i have never had a problem in 9 & 1/2 years of towing.....and i have had to make some very sharp turns more than once!  PO put the hitch and ball on years before we got it and there are no marks on the bumper so i don't think he ever had any problems either.  In fact until you asked the question, i had never even given it any thought,.....but i did have to go out just now and measure it to see what we had.

[Lin]

My Cherokee is even the same color as yours and has no problem with that set up.

[gumpy]

Before I weld this together. Is the hitch too close to the rear of bus?

The only reason I can think of why you might want to extend the receiver is to get the pin outside the bumper so you don't have to crawl under the bus to
insert and remove it. Also, if the receiver is out farther, you can more easily add a simple device which clamps to the ball mount and can eliminate any rattle
of the mount in the receiver which will wear the pin and elongate the holes.

The downside is that the receiver sticks out farther and could be a shin hazard.

Just my opinion.

[Boomer]

I used solid bar stock for the hitch and drilled a precision hole for the pin(s).  That way there is zero slop and no chance to wear the pin or egg out the hole.  Real heavy duty. I drilled 3 pin holes so can run extended or in close, and I also run 2 pins.  Double redundancy.

[bobofthenorth]

The closer you can keep the ball to the bumper of the bus the better.  Every extra inch is added leverage working against your engine cradle. (edit) Closer observation on my part makes it appear that you actually have a frame to work with but added length is still added leverage.

[Brassman]

What kind of hitch did you use? Do you have pictures looking up under the bumper? Rear engine skoolie owners want to know.

[somewhereinusa]

Thanks for the replies guys, I didn't really think there would be a problem, just wanted to make sure someone hadn't "been there, done that" and it didn't work.

What kind of hitch did you use?

brassman,

Right now it's just a bumper with a receiver stuck in a hole. A skoolie has a pretty substantial bumper, at least mine does.
With some inner bracing, the bumper is pretty much going to be the hitch.  I'll take some pictures as I progress.

Dick

[akroyaleagle]

Where will the hookups for the safety cables/chains be?

[somewhereinusa]

What kind of hitch did you use? Do you have pictures looking up under the bumper?

I finished up the hitch today. I'll either have to move "stuff" or move the bus to try out hitching up the towd.

This is the bracing I put inside the bumper. Final version changed a little. I had to cut notches in the brace to clear air conditioning pulleys.



It still gave a little, so I tied it into the lower engine mount.  It doesn't give at all now.



Here is view of everything installed.



Putting the pin in is a little tricky, but can be done from above or below. Not with the engine running though. :lol:

I couldn't get any usable pictures that showed the inside when mounted.

Dick

[gumpy]

Well, I'd have to see that bumper in person, but from the photos, I'm not convinced it's strong enough to be pulling a car with.

Granted, I don't have enough data to make a proper judgement, like bumper metal thickness, size and grade of bolts holding it on or what they are screwed into.

Just my opinion.

[bevans6]

FWIW it looks as strong as the bumper on my pickup truck, which is supposedly rated to 5,000 lbs.  The previous owner of my bus just bolted a receiver tube to the middle of the steel cross-brace behind the bumper of my MCI.  Flimsy as all heck, but he towed a jeep for 40K kilometers.  I put a real hitch on...

Brian

[chessie4905]

   Since you are only pulling the toad with little to no weight on the ball, it'll be fine. If you , in the future, contemplate towing any kind of trailer with significant tongue weight, then it should have better vertical reinforcement.