Thursday, Feb 28, 2008 at 08:17
Hi Neil,
Sorry, but suggest you go back to Square One
The correct set up requires one to first set the tow vehicle and van on a nice flat surface - try a big carpark.
Measure from ground to underside of all 4 car mudguards and write it down ! Get the van up close to the car tow hitch; wind the van jockey wheel up/down to get the A frame/van floor dead horizontal with a spirit level; if the vertical height of the vehicle's tow ball/AT35 receiver is not spot-on with the tow ball socket/AT35 "nose" on the van then adjust the height of vehicle side of tow hitch to suit .
In the event of a huge non-alignment problem, consider inverting the van side hitch from over the BT plate to under [or vice versa depending on your van and car].
Then couple up van to car. Re measure the 4 height from ground to underside of car's mudguards - write these down too.
Now fit your WDH bars with whatever number of links sems "äbout right" - i.e you can get the set-up in place without busting either your gut or the WDH !
Measure the 4 mudguard heights again.
Look at the sets of heights you have recorded and sit down and work our whether you need more grunt i.e. less links between HR bar and the van's holder "clip" or more to get the tow vehicle's heights back within say 2 mm of the heights measured before you coupled van to tow vehicle. It is probably more important to get the front wheel mudguards down to the un-coupled heights to ensure that the car's steering system works as originally intended by the car manufacturer than to get the rear heights back to un-coupled height.
Re-try with more/less links as determind BUT if you think/require less than 5 links then you will need to re-set the angle of the adjustable assembly carrying the towball/AT35 receiver on the vehicle side to allow the required number of links.
Our HR receiver assembly is an old style [Canadian manuf ?] without the adjustable multi-sided plate provided on the current Aust manuf HR hitches. I had an engineering shop slot the top holes in the towball mounting plate and used a set of steel wedges to rotate the towball mounting plate back sufficient to allow me 6 links between HR bar and the van's holder clip [ I prefer 6 links to give sufficient "play" in the set-up as we tend to go to all sorts of extreme places for "freecamping". In addition I have replaced the AT35 hitch with a Hyland ball type [with full 360 degree swivel axially and about +/- 50 degrees swivel in the cross direction] BUT that does not effect the correct method of setting up the HR WDH.
Personally I would not take my 18' on or off the highway without the WDH but make a point of taking it off for extreme parking manoevures and car-to-van angles of 60 degrees or more.
Hope this helps but if you have any further queries please feel free to email me at martinchristine@bigpond.com
Cheers from Martin B. currently at Crayfish Cove, Tasmania.
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