NATO Hitch

On or around Wed, 07 Apr 2004 21:07:42 +0100, "Paul S. Brown" enlightened us thusly:

nope. They mount on a pattern of 4 smaller bolts for which holes are present on series vehicles and 90/110.

if you want one on a disco/RR, you have to mount it at about bumper height. This is because the NATO stuff is at a standard height (well, actually, 2 standard heights) so the trailers can be towed behind MK 4x4 Bedfords and the like. Our disco has an adjustable dixon-bate-style hitch, and I've made an adapter for this to put a NATO hitch on it - details on request or I could make one I suppose. I could also make one to adapt a standard hitch, I guess, if I studied it.

successfully towed my big trailer with the 110 on it behind the disco (though only at up to 40 mph - it's HEAVY with the 110 on it) and nothing broke :-)

This is the only sensible solution IMO. Better still, contact Towsure who now make their own and ask them for two sets, but with a NATO drilled pattern on one of them (you can mention the strange hairy bloke from Sheffield who first asked them to drill this pattern!).

Ask them for what? Convertor plate or a new tow hitch?

P.

My Dixon Bate carrier was supplied drilled with 2 pairs of ball hitch holes and the 4 Nato holes as standard, it was only rated at 3 tonnes though.

AJH

Martyn

Did you get them to do this ..... I asked about 3 months ago and the answer was they could not do blanks or drilled in any other pattern

So tell me more - who did you talk too

Rich

The Towsure one is only rated at 2 tons though if their catalogue is accurate.

Paul

I can't remember the chaps name, but it 'may' be Mark. He works in the Trade Counter bit of the Sheffield branch. He's an ex-squaddie who knew instantly what a NATO hitch was and why I needed it. This was a couple of years ago and took a week for them to do.

Possibly, but it did what I needed it to do at the time :-)

On or around Thu, 08 Apr 2004 10:43:36 +0100, Mother enlightened us thusly:

when I made one it had to extend up a fair bit, so that it got the hitch to the right height, viz. 90/110 rear crossmember height, which is behind the bumper on the disco. The one i've made has an extra pin - the normal ball fitting is secured with just one on this hitch (which may not be genuine D-B).

pictures could be arranged, if anyone wants.

On or around Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:17:15 +0100, Paul Everett enlightened us thusly:

yer not supposed to put more'n 2 tons in a Sankey anyway :-)

Yeah, but Sankeys aren't the only thing that'll fit a NATO hitch...

Hi Paul, another solution to this problem is to "think outside the square".

Rather than rearrange to Nato hitche's mounting location to accomadate the taller towing point on the trailer, why not invert the tow point on the Sankey so that it is underneath and not on top of the A frame?

For those doubters Graham at Zeus Engineering did this years ago, and has been towing the Sankey all over the UK on a "standard" height hitch behind a Range Rover and Disco. Yes it takes a little work but means the trailer can be used on a wider range of vehicles.

If you want to see what it looks like, then look here:

Not a close up but you can see that the Nato ring is lower than normal (behind Roger's left leg).

Cheers

Phillip Simpson

Even if they were, a 3/4T Sankey can carry 3.8T of sand (or so I'm told, officer...) :-)

On or around Fri, 09 Apr 2004 09:59:04 +1000, Phillip Simpson enlightened us thusly:

well, you can do that I suppose. However, on my 110 I have both a ball hitch for low trailers and the NATO for the big trailer. On the disco with the sliding hitch, it's the work of a minute to change one for the other, and the spare pin lives with the NATO adapter.

The Dixon Bate slider on the adjustable hitch is drilled for NATO and standard hitches.

Early Sankey trailers had hitches that could easily be inverted for different tow heights and were designed as such. The ones for sale now would require the landing skid cutting off and the hitch unbolting and inverting. Should be ok as long as all the brake components line up but you are altering the design of the trailer which opens a whole new can of worms.

Other trailers like the 1 tonne Rapier Reload trailer this cannot be done.

Sean