And normally, you disconnect for reversing, and/or up and down rough ground.
(Steep angles)
Other than that.
they stay where they are. on.
They cover forward and aft rocking. sideways swaying. and transfer some load from rear of car to front.
Raising any dipping between vehicles depending on chain load.
Just remember though. Balance the chain load and bar strength to weight of vehicles and drawbar strength.
Don't put the 750kg bars on a light caravan and load it up to the hilt. (lots of links up)
You'll probably end up with kink in drawbar.
Really light vans. Use different to H/R.
unless they brought out weaker than the500/750 kg sets.
This 500kg is max set for my 18ft Tandem with medium application to suit. (4 links)
1.6 ton van.
Any lighter a van. the BARS will apply too much strain when activated too far up chain length (links)
The round bar systems are only normally good for light single axle units.
dzcook wrote:but have a vague remembrance from somewhere that they should t be used
1 on rough roads ?
It's not so much rough roads where you have to detach the bars. Its where you are crossing small creek crossings and the like. When you travel through a large dip you place too large a force on the bars and thus your tow bar when the tug or van go up and produce an significant angle between the van and the tug. You can occasionally get this on sealed roads.
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PeterD Nissan Navara D23 diesel auto, Spaceland pop-top Retired radio and electronics technician. NSW Central Coast.
Yep, careful reversing over humps because the bar ends have less road clearance and might catch something and dig in.
Bumps and dips not a problem, that is what they do best, stopping that bounce bounce bounce on your poor tug suspension, but sharp angle approach and departures can put excessive stresses on the WDH system and your tow bar and chassis. When going through dips such as creek crossings, savage driveway entrances, etc, try and do so at an angle (but watch that van @rse end swing out) rather than at 90 degrees.
It's surprising how much strain you put on the bars when you reverse the van onto a van site. I put mine on site in the Gateway village in Grafton yesterday. There did not seem to be much slope up onto the site (150) but when I came to uncouple there was a hell of a lot of strain when I released the bars. And before you ask, I did jack up the rear of the tug with the jockey wheel.
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PeterD Nissan Navara D23 diesel auto, Spaceland pop-top Retired radio and electronics technician. NSW Central Coast.
How do you guys go with speed humps, as fitted to caravan park driveways? Do you disconnect/reconnect before going over them?
We did our first trip in our first van last weekend (down to Cowes, Phillip Island), staying in one of the van parks there. It has speed humps going in and going out. I disconnected the chains before entering the driveway where the humps were. And when we left I put them on out on the road after exiting the park.
I don't know if I had to do all of this or not. Lots of info, much of it conflicting and confusing on the boards...
How do you guys go with speed humps, as fitted to caravan park driveways? Do you disconnect/reconnect before going over them?
We did our first trip in our first van last weekend (down to Cowes, Phillip Island), staying in one of the van parks there. It has speed humps going in and going out. I disconnected the chains before entering the driveway where the humps were. And when we left I put them on out on the road after exiting the park.
I don't know if I had to do all of this or not. Lots of info, much of it conflicting and confusing on the boards...
I certainly don't disconnect for speed humps, just go steady over them. I have got myself into the odd pickle having to reverse a long way and never felt the need to disconnect. BUT I would if it was very uneven ground that I had to reverse over.
