Tow Ball Question

On or around Sun, 19 Dec 2004 19:14:46 GMT, "Thos" enlightened us thusly:

If the trailer is twin or triple axle, you want it to sit level. Therefore, you need a drop plate or adjustable hitch for it.

There are several reasons for this, but the most relevant is that with a

4-wheel trailer, it should have 4-wheel brakes, and the less-loaded wheels will lock up. Also the load on the trailer suspension will be uneven and the noseweight on the vehicle (should be something between 25 and 50Kg, normally) will be much too high unless you load the trailer arse-heavy, and then it'll probably tow like a pig.

in short, yes. get it sorted. I made an adjustable hitch by copying the design of the one on our disco, it works fine. If your landy hasn't got a hitch with an alternative set of holes lower down for the ball to mount on, you'll need to add this. On most 110s, dropping the ball to the lowest position ought to work, if not, and if you don't want an adjustable one, then make or get a drop plate. 10mm plate with something like 25x12mm flat bars welded on the edges so that it looks in section like this:

weld weld ___v____________________________________v___ | | | | | |____________________________________| | | |/ \| | | | weld weld | | |___| |___|

The width between the 2 sides is about an inch wider than the width of a tow ball mounting plate

The hole pattern has all 16mm holes, 2 at the top to line up with the pair in the cross member, then a gap, then 4 in a pattern where the 4 in the normal hitch are, then one or 2 pairs below that depending on how low you make it go. On mine, I had 6 bolts: 2 long ones that go through the crossmember, 4 short ones which will go through the ball, the drop plate and the hitch holes, you then fit the hitch with 2 of these and put the other 2 in the spare holes from the set of 4. If mounting the ball lower than the normal bit, use 2 in the bottom pair of holes only.

Unladen the trailer and the tow vehicle should have hitches at about the same height. The trailer is acting as a lever on the tow vehicle, lifting it up, raising the back wheels to some extent. Towing would be unstable at best, at worst downright dangerous. Somewhere in your vehicle handbook there will be an advisory about "towball/hitch weight" - this is the amount of weight that the trailer should transfer to your towball, with a towball higher than the "ideal" trailer height you wont be able to achieve the towball weight as any weight added to the trailer will tend to lift it upwards.

You can get a drop hitch for some tow bars - the Series LRs had them fitted as standard I think. However the modern tubular hitches tend not to lend themselves to having that type of attachment.

Had same problem on mine ( 110 Tdi 300 csw ). Saw an RAF adaptation of 10mm plate steel which acted as a drop plate, only problem is to ensure it is braced properly so as not to get a turning effect when only bolted to the body at the top end. plate cost ~£15 much cheaper than a dixon bate and fine as I tow the same trailer all the time so do not need to adjust the height.

As others have said, get a proper hitch drop plate. Don't bodge one yourself unless you really really know what you are doing. IIRC all hitches now have to be plated [as in 'officially'] and 'e' marked. This may not apply to vehicles prior to '97 but at the end of the day it is your responsibility to find out. The trailer should not be hard to tow when empty because it probably weighs only 800kgs or so.

Huw

My Disco 300Tdi Auto battles to tow a trailer that wieghs about 400kgs empty. As soon as I load it up then it really battles.

Someone on the group described the 3500kgs tow limit as "You must be joking". I tend to agree based on my experiences, unless you regard driving in low 4 as normal.'

Regards Stephen

My Disco 300Tdi Auto battles to tow a trailer that wieghs about 400kgs empty. As soon as I load it up then it really battles.

Someone on the group described the 3500kgs tow limit as "You must be joking". I tend to agree based on my experiences, unless you regard driving in low 4 as normal.'

Regards Stephen

I tow a caravan with my 300tdi auto Disco which must weigh about 1500 kgs loaded and I hardly know its there. The exception being hills where it does slow down but hey whats the rush anyway.

On or around Mon, 20 Dec 2004 07:32:32 +0200, "fanie" enlightened us thusly:

I've had the 110 on the big trailer behind the TDi disco, and I've had the TDi disco on the big trailer behind the V8 Disco. Ok, we're not talking cruising at 60, and yes, it's slow uphill - hardly surprising, the trailer plus load were at least 3 tons. However, or welsh main roads pulling the other disco back from Bala to here, I didn't resort to low box once. Used to have to in the 110 before it had the V8, when it was a 2.5 - but that was partly 'cos of a fault in the gas mixer which didn't get traced 'til after I took that engine out of it, meaning that it never had the power it should've.

If your TDi struggles that much, then I reckon it's low on power, or else the auto box *really* doesn't suit it.

In article , fanie writes

My recovery trailer weighs in at 700 kg empty and my standard but

196,000 mile Discovery van will pull it with ease. The heaviest I have had it is with a Disco II on board. With that sort of load it is sensible and necessary to pull away on a hill in low range. The motorway inclines really slow it down but with a bit of anticipation a respectable progress can be made. 3500kgs is asking a lot from a 2.5 Diesel engine but it will do it. Try doing a days work with a 2.25 petrol series three, now that was amusing trying to pull the same weights.

Isn't that why the handbook tells you how to shift from lo to hi on the move. B-)

Similarly my trailer weighs over a ton empty and with a livestock canopy the wind resistance rises exponentially above 35mph so even my 200hp landcruiser struggles around 50mph with no payload. OTOH the 67hp naturally aspirated LR110 regularly tows it full with 'around' a 3.5 ton total weight and has done for 20 years. There's 'struggling' and there's 'REALLY struggling' LOL

Huw

My 110 tows ok with ridiculous loads, as did my 90 and my ex regularly tows two horses (in a horse box!) with no problems, and many of our customers tow a great deal (farmers - who wouldn't buy them if they couldn't tow). I've not heard of anyone having to resort to low box (except moving off in a Td5 on a steep hill - we are in the Peak District). I'd venture that you vehicle needs attention if you are having to resort to low 4th.

Richard

Wow, are you sure there are wheels on the trailer?

I've towed an absurdly heavy car transporter trailer which weighted 1 tonne empty, then plonked a 1.2 tonne car on it and towed it around a bit and my Defender 110 30TDi was great, even with a total tonnage of

2.2 tonnes behind it as well as its own weight. I'm not sure how well it pulled away though because I had to pull away extremely gingerly anyway as the trailer's hitch damper was broken so every time you set off at more than 1 mile per hour, there was an almighty BANG! as the trailer hitch extended and hit its end stop...

Repeating the performance later with a 700Kg trailer with the same car was effortless, hardly knew it was there once you were above about

20-30 MPH and getting to that speed wasn't too hard either.

My personal experience with trailers and my 3.9 auto Rangie is that

a) we had a double sinclair horsebox. Nearly stalled the rangie when it was empty, but get at least 60kgs of load over the axles and you didnt know it was there. Turns out one of the axles was slightly bent, and when loaded, the forces effectively straightened out the problem.

b) 6 months ago we hired a plant trailer, triple axle job. The trailer itself came it around the 1600kg mark. THought it was going to be a bitch when we loaded it up (horsey bits and fencing, feeders, gates) once it was loaded the characteristics didn't change. 60mph was comfortable on the m1 south, and we even averaged 25mpg - well impressed

With trailers I think that the main things are

1) all the axles should be level and all wheels in contact with the deck

2) a nose down or nose up attitude is goin to play merry hell with the noseweight values, which in turn can lead to odd handling characteristics

3) i'm guilty for not getting my horsebox checked sooner, but a lightweight trailer that seems to "weigh" far more is very very wrong

Si

Hi All Many thankx for a great response, I have a manual box. I didnt know I could change from High to Low on move, so will try that. I am having a drop plate fitted soon. If it still seems a little under powered, what could be the cause, I know the engine is high mileage and may be "tired" but should I take it to be checked on a rolling road or something ?? Once again thanks for taking the time to reply I greatly appreciate it Regards Tom

So Thos was, like

High to Low on the move is tricky, unless you have had a lot of practice. I usually stop and do the change stationary. Low to High is much easier, but find out the correct sequence for your vehicle before you have a go, or you might be looking at a new transmission. :-)