Installing a hitch on an eagle

[cody]

I'm getting ready to have a hitch put on my bus, an 1981 Eagle model 10 and I'm wondering about the problems I might encounter, the receiver is a take off a friend that runs a charter service removed from an MCI, it needs to be reworked to fit the eagle but should be strong enough for whatever I want to do with it.  I carefully looked at the frame in the eagle and don't see any rust issues with the framing but I understand that the frame in that area is mainly an engine cradle and am wondering what additional strengthening might be a good idea, I'm farming the work out to a metal fabrication shop and I'm sure they would be very good at what they do but any additional information I could tell them to do or be aware of would be helpfull.  In this area we have very few buses if any, other than mine, so this may be a type of vehicle they haven't worked on before, thats why I'm asking all this lol.  I intend to tow my Jeep Grand Cherokee, or my Dodge Ram 1500 pickup behind it, both are already equiped to be towed and I tow them behind my S&S now and then, but want to set up the bus for them.  Any thoughts or advise would be greatly appreciated.

[luvrbus]

Cody, if your Eagle has 6v92 all of the ones i have seen have 2 braces across the cradle that bolt into the existing holes in the frame.mine has a 8v92 and required a little more work for the bracing but no problem for 14 years.  good luck

[TomC]

With a heavy vehicle like that you're thinking of towing, pulling it isn't the problem.  It's the emergency slam on the brakes stopping that is.  Braking puts many times the force on the hitch since we can stop alot faster than we can accelerate.  Be sure to put on an auxiliary braking system on the towed so it will take care of its' own braking and take the stress off the bus frame.  I suggest the air operated type that ties into your bus braking system.  Good Luck, TomC

[cody]

The additional braking is a good point, any particular favorite sources for the air brakes?  Another idea that was suggested is to offset the hitch to the left of center to aid in right hand cornering, I'm told it makes the toad track further out and not cut as sharply, just trying to cover as many bases as possible lol.

[blue_goose]

Don't know if your eagle is the same as mine, but if it is let me tell you about a problem.  There is a square tube at the back of the engine that looks like a good place to weld the hitch.  That is where I put mine.  Also welded the end to a brace about 10' in frount of the bar.  After about 75,000 miles of towing the frount weld broke and the flexing of the tube broke the tube.  When that happened I lost the entire hitch, it went with the truck along with safty cabels. 
Now it is bolted to Main engine frame.

BE CAREFULL

[luvrbus]

Cody, the offset is fine but when you tow a trailer its not so good if you bolt it to the engine frame like blue goose says you will not have any problems.I think maybe Jim Shepard (rv safety) has a photo on his web

[cody]

I had thought that probably a couple of cross pieces from the tube to the side frame of they were heavy enough and bolted would probably be a good starting point, that cross member directly in back of the motor looks to be rubber mounted so I ruled that out as an anchor point, one thing that looks like a problem is the muffler sits inside the frame on the right side and is slightly above the height of the frame, so that would have to be worked around too. I'm posting a pic of the hitch I figure to use.