Flat Towing With Tow Bar. Bad Idea?

I have an NSA tow bar with the integrated braking. It seems to work well.

Here is my 1967 CJ-6 behind my 2006 Grand Cherokee.



I don't tow faster than 60 mph. At 65 I can start to feel the CJ-6 getting a bit squirrely. Maybe I need a better tow vehicle.

Ironically, the CJ-6 drives under it own power at 65 just fine. I set it up for towing because I did not think I would like driving it on the freeway. Turns out it handles really well. I also thought there would be to much wind to enjoy the drive but that also has not been the case.

 

Yep, deafness is under rated.

 

Is this your excuse for laughing at inappropriate points while I am spinning one of my thrilling yarns?

 

Can you make brackets for the jeep lower for the bar to be more level? When you pull it like that you are inputting a downward force on the front wheels of your jeep. It should pull like anything else. Your front wheels do have more leverage than on a cj5 but it should track without issue on a smooth straight road.

Here's a video I took late one very boring night.
Cruising at 60-65mph but no issue if I wanted to pass at a higher rate of speed...

 

So, Tri Cities? Maybe that's where I saw your rig, or its twin, not Hanksville.
I'm near Vancouver.

 

Not quite sure how that interfaces with the jeep brake system.

 

There is no weight on the towbar.

 

When I wired my jeep , I used a WeatherPack connector in the engine compartment to disconnect the rear brakes and turn signals. I made up a long
cord to go to the brake light connector. This isolates the electrical system. For flat towing, I would use a good rated tow bar. These run into the
$600-$700 range. You also need to consider what your attachment points are on your jeep. Even though I have a full float rear with hubs, I would consider
drive shaft removal for any long distance and I like the peace of mind. One less thing to worry over. If things can go wrong, they will go wrong. A trailer has
many advantages, such as brakes, backing up, and a way to get your junk home if you break down. It also has more tires, maintenance, storage, price and
other things to go with it. To be young again and throw caution to the wind.

 

No weight, but downward and upward forces are created when the attachment points are not on the same plane. It's similar to bump steer creating a sideways force out of a vertical input.
We are making a vertical force out of a sideways force.

 

I have a differing theory on this. The amount of downward force would be minuscule. I believe, more importantly, I’d actually prefer it to point down toward the tow rig just a little, as it will flatten in a panic braking situation, as opposed to pointing up and lifting the rear of the tow vehicle if it begins in the flat position. I don’t want my towed rig lifting any weight off the tires that are doing any of the braking.
Thoughts?

 

I hear ya, down towards the tow vehicle is definitely better than lifting the rear of the towing vehicle and causing a jack knife situation.

However you don't want the rear of the towing vehicle to lift when pulling up a hill or from the drag of pulling a sail down the highway.

This all would be more apparent with the shorter tow bars and lighter tow vehicles with more distance from hitch to axle (like my old ranger).

It's interesting to visually compare @Scott Bruns picture to mine with the ranger because the Cherokee has less distance to the hitch but the cj has more leverage of the front wheels between the hitch and the cj rear axle.

There's also the steering and alignment factors. my inlaws 66 tows like a dog in front of the vets office using the same 1/2 ton Silverado with the same drawbar on the same road.

 

My 4runner has always pulled the CJ5 with ease. This 4runner has the factory tow package with the receiver built into the frame, the wiring is integral and it has a transmission cooler, power steering cooler, dual piston calipers, and a heavy duty radiator.

The jeep weighs about twice as much as my bass boat, but with no tongue weight it is easier to pull than the boat. We also used to have a travel trailer that weighed about 3000, and when my son was in Boy Scouts I did most of the pulling of the Scout troops' trailer which must have weighed about 4,000# when loaded with all the Scout's gear. Compared to pulling a trailer that depends on support from the hitch flat towing the jeep is almost effortless.

As the picture shows here (taken a few years ago) the tow bar does slope down a little. I don't ever remember having the back of the 4runner seriously affected with a hard stop when pulling the jeep. The tow bar used to belong to my dad for towing their CJ7 behind a small motor home they had back in the early 80's. The tow bar was made by Valley towing products and was sized specifically for a CJ. It works great.

I put an access trailer plug on the Jeep's wiring harness going to the tail lights several years ago so I could disconnect the jeep lights and connect them to the towing harness. That saves me from having to carry around a separate set of towing lights.

 

My CJ is set up to tow with a bar, but I hate it. I ended up buying a trailer instead, and life is so much better. I just this week made a 1100 mile round trip just like this, with three folks and a dog in the truck, and all the gear we need to be at the beach for a week. I averaged 12.5mpg and ran 70mph the whole way.

 

I understand the dislike of the tow bar.
For 15 years, I lived in two houses that didn't have room for a car trailer. Flat tow was my only option.
Keeping a trailer on your property is a luxury that some don't have. Maintenance, tags and insurance are other issues.

 

I do have the luxury of living in a state where tags and insurance on trailers is not a thing.


Even if it were, it would be a sacrifice of make.

 

My tow bar drop is about 4 inches from the CJ-6 to the receiver on the Grand Cherokee. I thought the tow bar should be level, so I bought a 2" and a 4" receiver offset to see how they worked.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08FMF13PG?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1


The results were not good. Stopping quickly with the 4" riser installed caused the back of the Grand Cherokee to rise up dramatically. Even the 2" riser caused a lot of lifting of the rear end. I wish I had taken a video, it was really dramatic.

Stopping with the hitch installed directly into the receiver hitch caused the Grand Cherokee to remain stable. Through all the test stops the CJ-6 didn't move up or down at all.

I've since done a couple of much faster test stops and everything seems stable with no riser installed.

Maybe it would be different if the mount at the CJ-6 end was lowered. I don't know how I would make that happen.

I'm done towing now until fall. When I get a chance (like in October) I'm going to borrow some of the neighbors trucks to see how they handle towing my CJ-6. My Grand Cherokee does have the towing package. I bought it to tow my twin engine speed boat on a dual axel trailer. It handled the boat fine, even though the boat looked a lot bigger than the Grand Cherokee.

 

I just use a drop-hitch to find a desired height with whatever I'm towing. If I needed it higher than my receiver mount, I'd just flip it over so the drop-hitch is going up rather than down. I keep a few hitches with different balls around so I don't have to remove the ball itself from the hitch. They can get really hard to pull and remount. Better just to have separate hitch balls and hitches.

Regarding panic-stop situations, I've pulled so many trailers with different types of loads and configurations that I quickly learn to adjust my driving style to the capacity of the tow rig itself, and behavior of what's being towed, overall, as a whole. If I'm pulling a sketchy oversized load, I drive like an old woman, looking far ahead, making no sudden moves, braking way ahead, accelerating slowly, etc. It's that awareness and adaptive measure that's most important when pulling something. Know how your vehicle's handling. Sort of like driving my CJ when I first bought it, compared to now. The steering was REALLY sketchy when I bought it. Now, many new steering parts later, it's pretty much a one-handed driving experience down the road. Some trailers pull one-handed, and others are white-knuckle all the way. Make adjustments to your driving habits accordingly.

When towing different types of loads, sometimes I don't even know anything's back there. But often I find myself driving like I have a trailer back there, and I don't, especially after long multi-state pulls with a heavy load behind.

The odd thing for me, if I opt for a tow bar, will be not having any tongue weight. That'll be a strange one because I normally factor-in tongue weight as part of the overall load in itself, including both tow vehicle and trailer load being towed. I'm used to a long distance between hitch and the wheels of the towed trailer. It has a stabilizing effect overall, and sometimes my tow rig actually handles better with the right load following behind.

The Jeep won't have that affect. Short tongue. No tongue load. Front wheels with their own mind when it comes to direction. I'm curious about that one.

I have a welder-fabricator friend just up the road. I was thinking of having him build a beefy setup for me originally. Based on your input here, it sounds like that may be the best way to go as far as towing my CJ. If I don't like it, I can always sell it.

But he's pricey-as-hell... I was already going to have him weld on some new tow loops for my tow bar, and trying to figure out the best way to do it. I'll have to run it over there to see what he thinks.

I don't think I'll need surge brakes; depends on how things feel and how much I use it. I may strap some temporary/permanent lights onto the backs of my roll cage corners and just run a plug back to them. But I also like the idea of adding extra bulbs to my existing taillights. I have LED's back there so I'm not sure there's any space for more bulbs. I have to wire in a plug for my new custom hitch anyway, so now I can plan and do it all at once.

Thanks for all of the great ideas, input, and feedback. It's nice to know that so many of you have great results using a bar. Sounds like the best overall way to go for me. It'll be a start, at least, until I get some miles on the road.

 

Tri Cities is two hours south of us. We're west of Spokane on Highway 2. Our vacation home is in the most north-easterly town in Washington State. You're on the opposite SW corner if you're down by Vancouver. Your listed location makes it sound like you're north of Wenatchee, somewhere along the Columbia there.

I think we have enough guys in Washington that we could have our own event meetup. I have no idea where that might be, in some kind of centralized location, but I'm sure there's something out there. Maybe near Yakima, Ellensburg, Cle Elum, Wenatchee, or Leavenworth?

 

Regarding lights, I came up with an easy solution. I run a 4-pin jumper wire from the tow vehicle’s plug to the towed vehicle's plug to utilize the Jeep’s tail lights while flat towing. I wired a diode into each turn signal wire to keep the power from back feeding into the tow vehicle, then simply turn the turn signal stalk to left or right while towing to break contact of the brake lights and allow the turn signals to work independently and brake lights to also function. Confusing to conceptualize, but it works.

edit: I’m not sure if the diodes in the wiring are necessary in conjunction with the turn signal trick. I was trying to figure out how to make it all work and wired in the diodes before the eureka moment of turning on the turn signal. I was just about to wire in more diodes to the Jeep’s tail lights when I figured that out.

 

No self canceling?