Got a question about tow bars... I use one to take my '40 merc back and forth from a local storage garage. I'm never sure if I should be tying the steering wheel or letting it roll. It seems to track pretty well behind my tow vehicle but I assumed a '40's era car's front end geometry would self center if it is correctly aligned. What do you guys do? Hopefully I won't be towing it much longer as it's close to being road worthy but I always wondered. The funky tow bar in Ryan's Jalopy Journal cover article made my think of it! Thanks! Double Clutch
I haven't towed for quite awhile, but I remember using a double wrap on the bottom of the steering wheel so that the wheel could turn a bit up to the cross bar on the stering wheel and not anymore. The front end geometry of the towed car, would return the steering wheel to center when going straight.
Don't tie the wheel, but KEEP THE SPEED DOWN. There is probably a speed at about 30 or 35 that will make the towed car shimmy. Keep below this and you should be ok.
just keep the speed down. some guys use a bungee to help keep wheel centered. when the budget is low i used one often until i had a mishap. could have bought a nice trailer for what that costed me.
NEVER, EVER tie off the wheel on a flat-towed or dollied car, UNLESS, as stated before, you are towing the car BACKWARDS on a dolly or wrecker! The towed car HAS to be able to steer, in order to follow the towing vehicle. Far as speed goes, you can do 70 easily if both vehicles are up to doing that speed safely. Look at all the cars being flat-towed by RVs! It's done all of the time! NEVER flat-tow a car that does not have an engine/trans (N/A for rear-engined cars!). There is not enough weight in the front of most cars to safely do this, as the steering will tend to shimmy at speeds much above 35 or so.
Sorry but I'm going to disagree, a bungee cord from the bottom of the seat to the wheel will still allow enough movement for a car to track and yet keep the wheels from going full lock on a sharp turn. Nothing more aggravating than having to get out of the tow vehicle to straighten the wheels to keep them from dragging. cc
I had to use a bungee cord to keep the steering wheel somewhat centered on my 57 when towing it without the engine in it! Once the engine was back in it followed nicely.Guess it needed the weight to keep the steering geometry near correct.The wheels tended to keep turning and then get dragged a ways before they would straighten out.....
I would say to try real hard to get along without tying the steering wheel, but there are times when you just have to do it. Long ago I used to tow bar quite a number of old cars. I have even tow-barred for many hours at a time on ice and snow (hours of extra-careful driving can really wear you out). I have never had an accident (a few hairy situations, but no accidents), but I still think tow bars can be very dangerous, and avoid them whenever I can. Some cars would track very well. In those cases you left the wheel untied. There were some that just would never cooperate no matter how you shifted weight around, or played with tire pressures, or adjusted the mounts high or low. Some cars (usually Studebakers, but others too) just wouldn't track correctly no matter what you did. Maybe I should blame it on the negative caster that they and a few others used, but usually when you tried a gentle turn right or left, the towed car would suddenly and quickly turn its wheels to full-lock in the opposite direction, trying to push the tow car into a fishtail. NOT GOOD, no matter how you look at it. If nearly every reasonably gentle turn results in full opposite lock and a wide fishtail, you have no choice but to tie the wheel loosely to keep you from folding in half and going off the road sideways. In those cases, you just avoid anything but the most gentle of turns. I sometimes have had to stop halfway into a gas station entrance, and half on the highway, to get out, turn the towed cars' steering wheel back in the right direction, pull forward a few feet, watch the wheel spin madly into the wrong direction again, get out again, turn the wheel again, then finally make it into the parking lot. Some cars just do not cooperate, then you have to tie them. You have no other choice sometimes.
I never have tied the wheel when I used a tow bar. I've also sat someone behind the wheel of the car being towed in case I made a sharper turn and the wheel didn't center for some reason. Bob
The Jalopy Journal
