Extra long towbar instead of supertruss mod?

JRscooby wrote:

Kayteg1 wrote:
I do have old towing bars with telescopic sleeves on them.
The main advantage is that you can release the locks, adjust the length to couple the ball and then by moving truck forward, they will extend and lock without endless toad moving for fitment.
This is all steel construction, so I see no problem to add 4 feet of tubing to each bar. 1 hr of welding maybe.

Add 4 feet to each leg would be a piece of chicken. But the issue I see is when you unhook the toad, you have 2 choices. Working under the camper, remove coupler from ball (For old fat man like me PITA. YMMV) or you can remove the bar from toad, leave bar on truck. Now that long bar will stick out from under the camper, side or rear.

Unhooking the bar from toad will make heck of the job to hook it back in.
Unfortunately the idea comes with need for crawling under the camper, but I have to crawl for my camera and electrical cord hookups when I drop the camper and it is not such a big deal. Did not have to do it during the rain thought.

Kayteg1 wrote:

Unhooking the bar from toad will make heck of the job to hook it back in.
Unfortunately the idea comes with need for crawling under the camper, but I have to crawl for my camera and electrical cord hookups when I drop the camper and it is not such a big deal. Did not have to do it during the rain thought.

How many times you load/unload camper compared to hook/unhook?
And do you use the toad with the bar hanging on the front? If so will the longer bars still work?
I may not have the details right, but my understanding is; For a towbar to work it must pivot up and down at both ends. And at one end, normally front, must pivot side to side so you can turn. And the bars and front of toad make a triangle. To telescope, change the length of side of triangle, then the ends of that arm must have a pivot side to side, movement that is locked out when bars are locked in length. So the end should have enough movement to pin bars to toad with the other end held in place. I think it might be easier if you only need to lift one end of one bar.

joe&julie81 wrote:
I'm considering towing a Jeep Wrangler, probably 4dr, with my rig listed here (weight 4000-4500 lbs). Is there such a thing as an extended towbar for towing a vehicle that's not real heavy in lieu of adding the supertruss receiver hitch to extend the drawbar out the 18 inches that my tc overhangs? As long as the towed vehicle trails far enough behind the truck/tc rig it should be alright for turns? Anybody using interchangeable towbars of differing lengths, determined by what the toad is being pulled by?

I had a similar issue with having a motorcycle on the back of my motorhome. I used a solid bar extension of about 24" to get the hitch point to the rear. Check your turning clearance so the Jeep des not contact the camper and you should be fine. Had mine on for four years and about 20k miles zero issues. A couple of eyebolts to hold up the safety cables and electrical cord when unhooked keep you from climbing under for hooking/unhooking. Of course cables need to be hooked to truck.

Towed a Hummer H3 about 5500# with this. Can't comment about sway by feel (tag axle 42') but watching in the camera it never looked unstable and I had no strange tire wear so it must havebeen going straight.

JRscooby wrote:

Kayteg1 wrote:

Unhooking the bar from toad will make heck of the job to hook it back in.
Unfortunately the idea comes with need for crawling under the camper, but I have to crawl for my camera and electrical cord hookups when I drop the camper and it is not such a big deal. Did not have to do it during the rain thought.

How many times you load/unload camper compared to hook/unhook?
And do you use the toad with the bar hanging on the front? If so will the longer bars still work?
I may not have the details right, but my understanding is; For a towbar to work it must pivot up and down at both ends. And at one end, normally front, must pivot side to side so you can turn. And the bars and front of toad make a triangle. To telescope, change the length of side of triangle, then the ends of that arm must have a pivot side to side, movement that is locked out when bars are locked in length. So the end should have enough movement to pin bars to toad with the other end held in place. I think it might be easier if you only need to lift one end of one bar.

The bars I have are design to fold and stay on the toad.
Obviously adding 4'ft extension will not make them fit on the toad, but some brain-storming could make it doable.
Than do you really need 4' extension?
I drop my camper any time I need local ride, so it gets dropped as often as other's toad gets unhooked.

Kayteg1 wrote:


The bars I have are design to fold and stay on the toad.
Obviously adding 4'ft extension will not make them fit on the toad, but some brain-storming could make it doable.
Than do you really need 4' extension?
I drop my camper any time I need local ride, so it gets dropped as often as other's toad gets unhooked.

LOL, will the toad be "local ride"/reduce the need to unload?


As for how long the bars need to be. Run your tape from ball to corner of camper. Bars need to be long enough to hold the center of toad that far from ball, plus room for bar to angle vertical to toad. Another thing I just thought of; Height of ball relative to height of back of camper. When crossing a dip with drive axle, will the toad hold the bar up to hit bottom of camper?

JRscooby wrote:
Height of ball relative to height of back of camper. When crossing a dip with drive axle, will the toad hold the bar up to hit bottom of camper?

That aspect did make me wonder, but few members who have extensions on trailer tongue report that this is not a big issue. I assume they never tried to cross deep trench, but still the message is comforting.
Toad still give you advantage for the situation.
-you can lower the ball for more bars clearance
-when you come to situation with deep trench on your way, you can always unhook the toad and drive it separately.

I have a Lance 480 that is 9.6 feet long and I use an 18" solid bar extension that is almost flush with the Lance bumper..

That's all you need to tow your Jeep..Inexpensive yet stronger than the hollow bar extensions..

There is big difference between 18" and 48" extensions.
The bending forces are 7 times multiplied between the 2 and that's why you need superhitch for long one.

Keep in mind that the draw bar / ball mount will extend 6" - 12" out from the receiver hitch so you won't need much of an extension to get to 18". I have an 8" extension that I use and it really doesn't limit capacity by much.

Kayteg1 wrote:
There is big difference between 18" and 48" extensions.
The bending forces are 7 times multiplied between the 2 and that's why you need superhitch for long one.

Can you explain your math? Also, why does it matter for flat towing?