If your vehicle suddenly breaks down while you’re on the road, sometimes it may necessitate the need to do it all by yourself, to save the situation, and get a better chance of taking the vehicle to a professional repair shop. For DIY solutions to happen, you need to equip yourself with essential tools and equipment. It is important to understand the tools required and the type of work they can perform. Let us explore at some of these tools you may need for effective towing process.
- Trailer
Of course you need a trailer – a wheeled equipment that is intended to be pulled by another vehicle. There are different trailer types and you should know their capabilities. There are enclosed auto and gear haulers, livestock trailers, flatbed trailers, car towing dollies, camping trailers, boat trailers among others.
- A Tow Bar
A tow bar is a V shaped bar with a towing coupler. It is used on flat-tow cars behind tow vehicles such as RV’s. When using a tow bar, the trailer becomes the towed automobile while the tow bar is the coupler. This type of towing is referred to as towing in dinghy style.
- A Tow Dolly
When we talk of a tow dolly, we are talking about a two-wheeled trailer that cradles the front wheels of a car at the same time ensuring that the rear wheels are on the road. Tow dollies are light duty and used for short hauls. They can as well be used on pickups and RV’s that are equipped with a slide in camper to tow other automobiles.
- Trailer Lighting
Successful towing process requires proper lighting to signal and direct other road users accordingly. Trailers need to have signaling lights similar to powered motor vehicles. It is a legal obligation for trailers to have proper lighting on their taillights, turn signals and brake lights. The lights must be connected to tow vehicle and act in sync with the lights from the vehicle.
- Weight Distribution Hitch
We use a weight distribution hitch to haul heavy loads by the use of conventional style receiver hitches. The hitch makes use of spring bars and long rods that are attached back to the trailer’s frame. The spring bars makes sure that the tow vehicle can distribute weight evenly between the rear and front wheels by exerting leverage on the frame of the tow vehicles.
Above are just the basic equipment you need to conduct towing, they are in-exhaustive. others you would need include; hitch ball mount, hitch pin and clip, trailer wiring, coupler, safety chain among others.
