Towing a trailer

[aspenarb]

Long trailers are not a problem if towed by a short wheelbase 4wd vehicle with a good turning circle.A long tow truck and trailer are a ballache.

 

Bob

[Baldbloke]

 
Mine's not drive-thru friendly. [emoji852]
 

 
(I've tried..)

When I first took mine through I did consider the possibility of having to back out too[emoji1]
I followed a brand new sign written similarly sized flat bed truck to yours through our local drive though a couple of months ago. The young pilot got it disastrously wrong by taking out the side of the bed against a steel bollard. It didn’t help that he continued forwards rather than stopping, reversing and taking a wider line.

[Peter 1955]

On 23/01/2022 at 10:43, aspenarb said:

Long trailers are not a problem if towed by a short wheelbase 4wd vehicle with a good turning circle.A long tow truck and trailer are a ballache.

 

Bob

Anything hitched behind a 3.5T LWB LDV is a real pain. They were never nimble. Or narrow. I remember driving towards a Golf Club, which had telegraph poles laid horizontally, about a foot high to keep vehicles off the grass. All of a sudden, I stopped dead! My front wheel nuts had snagged the poles at each side, and I couldn't get anywhere near! 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Peter 1955

[doobin]

12 minutes ago, Peter 1955 said:

Anything hitched behind a 3.5T LWB LDV is a real pain. They were never nimble. Or narrow. I remember driving towards a Golf Club, which had telegraph poles laid horizontally, about a foot high to keep vehicles off the grass. All of a sudden, I stopped dead! My front wheel nuts had snagged the poles at each side, and I couldn't get anywhere near! 

My first LDV had a tail lift on it, which I removed as I didn't need it. That left a wedge shaped rear which I simply slotted a scaffold board across. This wedge shaped rear came in handy once when I put the back end down after lifting it with the tractor to adjust the rear brakes (a regular occurance as I'm sure you'll know). However, I'd neglected to check the handbrake. I watched in horror as it slowly started to roll backwards out of the barn, then accelerated quickly down a short steep slope to the yard level before crashing arse first into the corner of a steel framed barn. That wedge shaped arse was the perfect crumple zone, and overall suffered remarkably little damage.

 

One day I was popping into screwfix, and as I was in a hurry, reverse parked into one of the spaces right next to the door. These had big red bollards at the sides to stop HGVs overnighting, and more bollards at the back. I was concentrating so hard on avoiding the side bollards that I forgot about the rear. The round top of the bollard slid easily up under the wedge at the arse end. The arse end rose up slightly, I braked but it was too late as the momentum carried the back end right off the end of the wedge and dropped back down- stuck there with the rear wheels in the air!

 

This was right in front of the store doors. I had no option. I went in, and took a bow 🤣. Then purchased a jack and found some bricks down the side of the store to free myself.

[Peter 1955]

Oh Doobin, that makes me feel so good about myself. It's not just me then? Yes, we got very good at adjusting those rears. When tuned up tight, they worked a lot better than the discs on my Transit do now!