Dumbest question ever?

"There are no stupid questions; only stupid people." :) Now who said that? Free can of WD40 for whoever knows.

And I've had no experience at all of tow hitches, NATO or otherwise, so I don't know either. But from the pics I've seen, my vote is with the No camp.

David

Well, as David has said, there are no such things as stupid questions, only people stupid enough not to ask them (at least that's what I think David meant to say...) :-)

If you mean, can a trailer with a ball hitch be connected to a vehicle with a NATO hitch, then the answer is 'no'.

If you mean, can a nato ring be put on a trailer in order to hitch it to a NATO hitch, then generally the answer will be 'no', unless you have a trailer (like a Sankey) which used to have a NATO hitch / ring. Even then, it's likely not to be worth your while.

Martyn

Question answered, thank you--I'll now leave the thread before the wolves arrive

No but I have seen a substantial modification done that allows a towball to be fitted and lowered down to a more appropriate height. It saved removing the NATO hitch. It was done using a Sankey trailer towing eye welded to a plate, onto which was bolted the standard tow ball. This device was locked into the NATO jaw then allowed to drop vertically. Rose jointed bracing went back to the chassis

The nicest solution seen was on a couple of military 90's used to tow regimental recruitment trailers. They had a Dixon Bate and swapped the NATO hitch (with it's Dixon Bate mounting plate) for a standard tow ball (also fitted on a mounting plate). I can't quite remember how the towball was lowered to the correct height though, the NATO jaw sits at crossmember height. I'm sure the trailer hitches were a more common height so there must have been provision for height adjustment in the Dixon Bate.

Haven't seen anything like that for a while now, seem to see Mitsubishi or Toyota crewcab types used for recruitment these days.

All the best

On or around Mon, 22 Dec 2003 20:38:06 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@lardrover.co.uk enlightened us thusly:

You should be able to fit, maybe slightly modified, a D-B style sliding hitch under the Nato one. On my 110, I have a drop plate with ball hitch on it and a Nato hitch on the crossmember. Did find however that the wrong combo of trailer height and trailer hitch means that you have to unbolt the NATO hitch to hook the ball one on. In theory, there was room, in practice you couldn't hook it up - mind, the D-B moves the ball out about 3", which might've solved the problem, had I had such a thing on mine.

meanwhile, I also made a giant adapter for the D-B style adjustable hitch on the disco, which has 2 pins in the top and bottom holes for the adjustable hitch and extends up to bumper height, with a NATO hitch on the top of it, so I can tow the big trailer behind the disco.

In article , bobgal writes

Don't be self-deprecating.

Ignorance is only just that... it's _wilful_ ignorance that's deplorable!

Doubt it - and because of the nature of the coupling, I doubt there is any safe way of adapting one to t'other unless it's permanently.

Regards,

Simonm.