to tow or not to tow

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Cfred
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by Cfred »

U-Haul will give you grief if you tell them it is a Corvair. Company Policy I was told. Chevy II, etc no problem.

I towed the Wagon 120 miles with a Ford F-250 - no swaying or unbalance.

Good luck
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er-mine
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by er-mine »

what a nice elwood that is !

bring that on over...they are usually too roasted for my liking

ill be excited bout yours tho~!

...yeah, a front engine fib is in order for sure!
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terribleted
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by terribleted »

The rule of thumb for trailer loading is 60% of load weight forward of the trailers axle The translates to having the trailer axle roughly under the Corvair's transmission. That said most trailers are pretty stable even with only 45-50% of the weight forward, BUT, this type of loading is dangerous as a good hard cross breeze gust, or pothole, or, or could start an unrecoverable sway. If the load is 55 or more % weight forward the trailer will handle nicely, and, IF a little sway should happen you can ease off the gas and lightly apply the brakes to get it back in control. If the weight is rear biased and it starts to really sway and you apply the brakes it is very likely that the heavy rear end of the trailer will try to come to the drivers window to say hello. The best way to stop a sway is too slowly apply the trailer brakes. Braking the trailer only will set it right back in line. Some trailers do no have brakes and some like U-Hauls do not work independently of the vehicle, in which case braking may work but may make the situation worse. Another way to stop a bad sway of a badly rear weight biased trailer is to punch the gas which will result either the trailer coming back into line (and then possibly swaying again as you try to slow down) or possible death during the ensuing destruction during the wreck. What you actually should do is react in a relatively slow controlled manner even though the trailer is trying to yank you off the road, hold on tight and ease off the gas if it does not make the sway worse to do so, same goes for use of brakes (slowly and not hard). If everything goes well you get recovered before you crash or run out of road. I have hauled a lot of trailers and have experienced a few bad sways over the years....I actually have been lucky to not have wrecked at least once in the few occurrences I have had. The key is be sure that the 60% of the weight is forward and assume while driving that the trailer might sway. Feel for sway while hauling and if you feel the slightest bit of tail wag, stop and reposition the load more forward.

One of the 3 cars trailers I have owned was originally designed as an open utility trailer instead of car hauler, which means the axles were a bit farther forward. With this trailer it was necessary to rear load Corvairs. With my 15' car hauler it was also best to rear load Corvairs, but it was not terribly unstable loaded forward with the nose of the car as far forward as possible. The 19' trailer I had was the best. You could load a Vair nose forward and have space in front to easily play with tie-down straps, and you could lash down some gear on the front as well ( I ordered a 17 footer and they made a 19 by mistake...I got 2 feet free, but the 17 footer would have been perfect just not much lash down space in front of the car and it would have been easier to store)
Last edited by terribleted on Thu Jul 21, 2016 6:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Corvair guy since 1982. I have personally restored at least 20 Vairs, many of them restored ground up.
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terribleted
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by terribleted »

Cfred wrote:U-Haul will give you grief if you tell them it is a Corvair. Company Policy I was told. Chevy II, etc no problem.

I towed the Wagon 120 miles with a Ford F-250 - no swaying or unbalance.

Good luck
This load looks like it should be close to 60% weight forward. The trailer is quite heavy, and just looking at it you can tell that at least 60% and likely more of the weight of the trailer is forward of the center line between the 2 axles. (dual axles are treated as one with the balance bias point centered between them). The wagon's trans is roughly atop the rear axle, so the car is maybe just a few inches not far enough forward to be 60% weight forward itself, BUT, the heavy structure and forward bias of the trailer likely makes up for this.
Corvair guy since 1982. I have personally restored at least 20 Vairs, many of them restored ground up.
Currently working full time repairing Corvairs and restoring old cars.
https://www.facebook.com/tedsautorestoration/

Located in Snellville, Georgia
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er-mine
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by er-mine »

Well it towed easily... everything went well

Loaded backwards towd at 55 miles an hour....$69
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azdave
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by azdave »

Glad you got it home with no thrills and for a low rental price. It's a good time to be towing with gas at $1.80 a gallon!
Dave W. from Gilbert, AZ

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er-mine
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by er-mine »

Hey Dave thanks...

Geesh...I missed your Show Low to Gilbert tow several.posts back

but I was never sure what day this is going to take place. The travels were from Prescott to Phoenix....But ended up taking the car to Apache Junction to a mutual friend's house

Man that was a lot of tow time.....!
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er-mine
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by er-mine »

64powerglide wrote:If he has a full size SUV he shouldn't have a problem, just put some bags of sand in the front & haul away!!!!!!!!! I would say use a wrecker service that has a truck, I had a Bobcat hauled 50 miles for $100.00. If you cannot afford that you have the wrong hobby. :my02: My son hauls a Bobcat every week so if I have to haul a Corvair i'll just use his trailer, that's a bigger trailer but my motorhome weighs 9,000lbs. ::-):

Hey 64g

Towing never seems cheap .... It practically cost fifty bucks just to get hooked up.

I ended up towing the car 300 miles and got all that done for 69 bucks.... That's better than a 50 mile Bobcat ride for a hundred

On being in the wrong Hobby and not having a hundred dollars to devote to towing...

Most of us have several of hobbies and are trying to make them all work....

With that i try to figure out how to make things work economically .... and save money, not spend it

But that's just my two cents :my02:

I did liked you're sandbag idear ... sadly there was no hardware store close enough to the godforsaken place that I picked it up.

Since it was Raining the whole trip... I didn't feel like stopping and wrestling with sandbags in the rain.

Luckily the pickup point was less rainy and car went on backwards easily
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by 64powerglide »

I didn't think you would have any problems, I just don't know why U-Haul has such small car hauling trailers. By the looks of it in the photo they sure are short. You have to have a good size rig the haul a Bobcat so I didn't think $100 was to bad a deal. I got the Bobcat "843" for $2600.00 and sold it for $8500.00 so the $100.00 haul was worth it to me. The car hobby is getting out of hand, last year I bought a bottle of 3M rubbing compound for $32.00, last month I got another one"$40.00. Watching E-Bay's Corvair's & cannot believe what guys are asking for them & lots are getting what they want. There is a downside & upside to that though. Anyway, glad you didn't have any problems hauling your Corvair. :tu:
Last edited by 64powerglide on Sat Aug 20, 2016 4:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
64Powerglide, Jeff Phillips

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er-mine
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by er-mine »

Oh my that's a nice profit on that Bobcat!

A pal of mine's father is constantly going through bobcats...and he seems to lose money on them rather than make money

After all said and done I had a lot of weight on that tongue ... being that it was a short trailer and I couldn't adjust a load

Putting it in frontways and throwing sand in front t probably would have been the best of both worlds

But like I said it was raining and that took the wind out of my wishes....Too bad cause I could use the sand for some yard leveling!
olcorvairguy
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by olcorvairguy »

So to rekindle the topic, Can we tow Power glide cars with a tow bar or Dolly. Yes or No ?
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azdave
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by azdave »

olcorvairguy wrote:So to rekindle the topic, Can we tow Power glide cars with a tow bar or Dolly. Yes or No ?
Yes.

All my life I've heard people claim "You'll burn it up !" and yet I've never found someone who said it actually happened to them.

Myself? For anything exceeding a few miles I always chose to fully trailer because I do not like flat towing or tow dollies for moving any vehicle not just Vairs.


Below is an excerpt from Mike Dawson in an article he did on the Corvair Powerglide.
http://www.hacoa.org/index.php/help/doc ... powerglide

Towing? Once again the rear pump will handle it. As long as you get above 20 MPH
and the fluid level is correct, the entire transmission will be lubricated properly. Whether
driving the car normally or towing, the front pump is not used after you reach 20+,
because the rear pump has taken over all of the hydraulic functions. No need for the
engine to be running on short trips but there is no cooling air available for the converter
with the engine off, so check the unit by hand or with an infra red if you are towing in
hot weather for long distances. You could run the engine on fast idle for a few minutes if
necessary.



If you want to read more look at the 4th post by 65 ragtop in this thread.
viewtopic.php?t=1661
Dave W. from Gilbert, AZ

66 Corsa 140/4 Yenko Stinger Tribute
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by olcorvairguy »

Thanks Dave ! that is a very helpful link.

Regards Jim
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Re: to tow or not to tow

Post by 4carbcorvair »

I always load backward just for my own comfort. Unless it's a convertible, than it goes on forward.

I tried to rent a trailer once from U-Haul. They were trying to get me to rent one of their trucks to tow with. Anyway, I ended up borrowing a friends trailer, loaded and old convertible with no top on nose first. Had it all the way forward. Anything over 45 and it would start to sway. The trailer design was poor as the wheels of it were almost exactly centered under the trailer. Wayyy too much weight over the rear of the trailer. And putting it rear first would have most certainly blown the windshield out.
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