new towed vehicle - Jeep Wrangler

[willald]

Well, for various reasons, we have decided to pull the trigger, and trade one of our older vehicles for a Jeep Wrangler. Wife and I both have always loved Jeeps, wanted to one day own one, and now we going to make that happen. 🙂

Part of what motivated this as well was the fact that we live way out in the country where it is very hilly, and are finding that when it snows here, they do not plow or salt any of the roads. Hilly roads, unplowed and unsalted when it snows means, without a 4x4, you aren't getting out when it snows or roads get bad.

We went with this silver 2018 Unlimited Sport model (JK). I wanted one that was built on a ladder frame (not unibody), so that was why we didn't look for anything newer than 2018, and wanted a JK model.

We already have the Ford Taurus we tow behind the RV (4 down), and it is working fine. However, I definitely am planning on setting the new Jeep up to flat tow as well, as there are places we go where we'll want the Jeep instead of the Taurus.

At any rate, that brings us to what I wanted to talk about here: Setting up a Jeep Wrangler for flat towing. We use the Readybrute/Readybrake on the Taurus, so will be setting up the Jeep with the Readybrake and Readystop cables. I will probably get a Cooltech wiring harness and wire in the Jeep tailights for flat towing. Any hints, suggestions on installing the wiring harness and readybrake cable, would be welcome. 🙂

What I'm mostly struggling with right now has to do with the base plate set up in the front. I see a couple options:

1. Replace front bumper with one that allows you to bolt the Blue Ox brackets directly to the front, like the Rock Hard 4x4 Patriot or Rugged Ridge Spartan bumper. Really like this idea, but problem is, unless you spend a ton of $$ on an aluminum bumper, you are looking at a steel bumper that is very, very heavy. Don't want to make this jeep any heavier than it already is if I can avoid it. Are there any bumper options out there, that you can connect blue ox brackets to, aren't so heavy, and not so hard on the wallet?

2. Blue Ox base plate, installed right under the bumper - Really leaning this direction, but hate that it sits so low under the bumper, and vulnerable to a rock or something hitting it, as we do plan to do some off-roading now and then.

3. Currie Rock Jock tow bar mounting kit - This one replaces front air dam/chin under the bumper with a steel piece that has tow hooks incorporated into it, that tow bar would attach to. Like this one, too, and its definitely the least expensive, but questioning how strong it'd be, given the way it attaches. Its just bolted on top to the stock bumper, and on bottom to frame cross member. Doesn't bolt directly to frame rails like other ones do, so not sure if it'd be as solid. That, and the position of the tow hooks has me concerned it'd make the tow bar clevises rub up against bottom of the (stock) bumper.

Soooo, Jeep owners that flat tow: What recommendations do you have, as far as how to set it up for towing? Anything else I need to know? We pick up the Jeep Saturday (can't wait!), would like to have it ready to flat tow by April for upcoming trip to the beach, so need to start ordering stuff fairly soon.

[willald]

One more update: Well, the Jeep is done, and ready to tow. We finished it last Saturday, as I'd hoped to. I like the satisfying feeling you get when you complete something like this, it all works, and you did it all yourself without having to hire anyone. 🙂

I struggled a little to find a good place to mount the Readystop unit on the front. Ended up mounting it underneath, on the front frame crossbar just behind the front air dam. Ended up having to do a little 'customizing' of the front air dam to make it work, but it worked out OK. Any Jeep owners that use a Readystop: Can you share where you mounted the Readystop unit? I'm curious if there is a better way I just didn't think of.

Tail lights did not work initially. After some troubleshooting, found that Jeep was wired right and was fine; issue was with the wiring with the Motorhome. I'd done something stupid when wired up the 6 round connector on back of Motorhome last August, which ultimately caused the wires to short out and blow a fuse. After correcting the short, then replacing the fuse that said short had caused, all is working fine.

As for bikes: After much thought, we decided to go with a spare tire mounted bike rack, the Yakima 2 bike rack. Was just about to plunk down the $$ and buy one new, when found exact same unit on Craigs list slightly used for a lot less $$. Picking that up this evening.

We are sooooo ready to get back out camping next month. 🙂

[willald]

Y-Guy wrote:
Congrats on the setup! I do agree the setup takes time, I tried not to rush mine but it was slow and frustrating. I was swapping bumpers on mine as well but in some ways that helped as I had easier access.

I may well swap the bumper in the future, as I do like all the options out there for such. However, I don't want to have to cut a bunch of holes in the new bumper for the 6 round connector and readybrake cable. That ultimately was why I chose the blue ox base plate.

As for shifting, the problem you finding seems pretty common on the 2018 and newer JL's. I'd read several take it to the dealer and were told it's normal.

Thanks for the advice there. We'll just have to learn to live with it, I suppose.

We have a four bike carrier that we used when the kids were growing up and pre-Jeep, to use it now I'd have to get a hitch extender. They do make some that will rotate out of the way so you have access to the back of the Jeep... it's just $$$.

If we are going to mount the bikes to the back of the Jeep, not sure if I'll go with a spare mounted carrier or a hitch mounted one. Not sure if I'd trust a spare mounted one as much as a hitch mounted one.

Yes, I've seen the (hitch mounted) ones that swing/rotate out of the way so you can open the back. That would be really cool, but, like you said, thats a lot of $$$, and its also a lot of extra weight.

[Y-Guy]

Congrats on the setup! I do agree the setup takes time, I tried not to rush mine but it was slow and frustrating. I was swapping bumpers on mine as well but in some ways that helped as I had easier access. Still slow process, I understand better why shops charge what they charge now.

As for shifting, the problem you finding seems pretty common on the 2018 and newer JL's. I'd read several take it to the dealer and were told it's normal.

We have a four bike carrier that we used when the kids were growing up and pre-Jeep, to use it now I'd have to get a hitch extender. They do make some that will rotate out of the way so you have access to the back of the Jeep... it's just $$$.

I used the same video's found them very detailed and help.

I just got all the parts for my wiring in, and weather is warming up so probably will be my weekend task.

[willald]

Another update: Well, we've been working all week on setting the Jeep up to flat tow.

I've had several vehicles set up for towing over last 10 years or so, but this is the first time doing ALL of the work ourselves and not hiring someone else to do any of it. And, did not realize, just how much work it is, and how time consuming it is! Even for a vehicle like a Jeep that is supposedly one of the easiest to set up, its still very time consuming, and means a lot of time laying on your back underneath it. I see now why it costs so much to hire someone to do all this work, haha.

We've been at it since Saturday, and still are not done yet. The tasks that instruction videos make look quick and simple...Let me tell you, for an average joe like me that doesn't have all the expensive, nice tools, it takes a good bit longer. That, and when you're an average joe that also works a full time job during the day and have other responsibilities as well, you can't quite devote as much time to these things. I'm hoping to have it all done by Saturday, in which case will have taken an entire week to do it all.

Fortunately, I am married to one that knows her way around the tool box and is pretty mechanically inclined, too. She (wife) has been right in there with me helping all the way - Torqueing down the bolts for the base plate, keeping my messes organized, crawling around under it with me snaking wires through the frame, or just holding a light while I wrestle cables around and tie them down....She does it all, and that has helped a lot. And, made it much more fun. 🙂

We have the base plate on and done, and the Readybrake and Readystop cables installed. Started on the tail light wiring yesterday evening and got the wires snaked through the frame for such, but still have some more to do to finish that up. Still have to finish wiring it all to the 6 round connector at the front, and install the brake light relay. Then, just got to put the bumper and front air dam back on and we are good. Don't have any trips planned until next month, so we have time.

We decided to use the Hopkins custom wiring kit that uses existing taillights, with a brake light relay kit to address the issue with the vehicle's braking over-riding the signal coming from the Motorhome. Good thing about the brake relay kit, is installing it provides an easy way to also run the wire up front for the brake light indicator I have on the Motorhome, so we will know when brakes on the Jeep are getting engaged, like we have with our other tow vehicles.

Decided not to get the trailer hitch or trailer wiring kit just yet. Will save that project for another day. Don't plan to tow anything behind the Jeep anytime soon, so no rush on that.

Learned a lot from THESE guys on youtube about how to set up the Jeep. Very helpful videos there about how to install everything.

Once this is all done....Then, we just got to decide on, figure out best way to carry our bikes in the Jeep. We have two we normally carry, but occasionally will want to bring 4 when the kids join us. I thinking, two will go inside with the front wheels off, and two will go on the back on a spare tire mounted bike rack.

[willald]

Update: Well, we got the Jeep Friday evening, and we love it. Very excited to start having fun with it.

Spent most of Saturday trying to figure out various things with it - Took hard top off briefly to see how that worked (too cold here to leave it off now, haha), figuring out how we could fit our bikes in the back. Then, went through the process of getting transfer case into neutral and out for towing. Will definitely take some getting used to, the whole procedure for putting transfer case into and out of neutral for towing.

We found that shifting from neutral back into 2H (two wheel drive), was extremely difficult first few times. About busted knuckles, because had to push soooo hard on shifter, then when it does go into 2H you can easily hit your knuckles on the dash. It seemed to get easier after first couple of times, so I wondering if this is one of those jeeps that never left the pavement or went out of two wheel drive its whole life, and transfer case was a bit stiff at first because of that? Is it normal for the transfer case to be so stiff and difficult to get out of neutral? Any tips on how to make that easier?

Also, we did not realize that with transfer case in neutral, and transmission in park (the way you tow), you cannot just start the engine. Have to shift tranny out of park before you can crank engine. Still trying to understand why that is, mechanically (can anyone explain that?). How are you Jeep owners avoiding making that (potentially catastrophic) mistake?

After thinking things through for probably way too long (haha), I've pretty well decided on the Blue Ox base plate, and a custom Hopkins wiring kit for the taillights. Also ordering a trailer tow kit and trailer hitch, and will set that up at the same time as we may occasionally use it tow small utility trailers. Will wire it like I have all other vehicles I've towed, in that the trailer tow kit will also be used to run a wire up to the 6 round connector up front and to the MH, to an indicator LED on the dash that comes on when towed vehicle's brakes are being applied.

Not sure if gonna wire a charge line to the battery like I've done on previous towed vehicles. Since ignition is off when towing the Jeep, only thing I'd think would draw on the battery would be the brake lights when brakes are applied. What are the thoughts there? Should I go ahead and wire in the charge line?

Anyway, thanks for all your input, please keep it coming. 🙂

[Y-Guy]

willald wrote:
Hadn't seen those, but looking at it, not sure how you'd attach Blue ox style Clevis attachments to it?

This photo shows the bumper bracket, with the NSA Steel Clevis Adapter

[Y-Guy]

willald wrote:
I know you used the Rugged Ridge Spartan front bumper. Have you had any issues with it like I mentioned above, with bolting on the blue ox brackets causing the bumper to deform, or powder coat to peel off? I read some reviews indicating they had that problem, which is why I was hesitant to go that route.

I will be curious to hear how your experience goes with the Cooltech harness with a JK model, as I am really on the fence still as far as what to do with the tail light wiring. Really leaning toward separate bulbs, but we'll see.

So far no issues with any deforming. I made sure my bolts were torqued and no movement. But I will keep checking and if I do I'll post up, net trip out is in a few weeks. IMHO the bumper shouldn't be an issues the bolts are holding the brackets on, the bumper is just sandwiched in between. But I can see if the bumper gets hit or moved, or if it wasn't fully tight I suppose.

The 2nd bulbs wasn't an option for me as I swapped my rear tail lights with a new LED fixture (which I love as they are much brighter and better reverse lights)

[Alan_Hepburn]

willald wrote:

Hmmm.....I read some bad reviews on that one, saying that when they bolted the blue ox brackets on, it deformed the bumper and cause the powder coat to flake off. That was other reason I was a bit afraid of that one. Have you not had any issues with that? That, and I read where the company that made it openly admitted their bumper was not designed to do such.

I'm not sure how the bumper could deform - it's basically a solid piece of steel, placed between the brackets and the frame horn, with the mounting bolts going straight through into the frame. The only deformation I could think of would be possibly squeezing it, but that would take a LOT of torque on the bolts! Once the brackets are installed any force from towing would be placed on the mounting bolts and not on the bumper.

When I contacted Rugged Ridge they didn't say that the bumper wasn't designed for towing; rather they said they had not tested it for towing - a subtle difference. Since the bumper is really nothing more than the center layer of a 3-layer steel "sandwich" there should be no problem - it's the mounting bolts doing the work.

Hadn't seen those, but looking at it, not sure how you'd attach Blue ox style Clevis attachments to it?

They offer the adapters, which apparently replace the ends of the Blue Ox tow bar arms and mate up with the loops.

[willald]

Y-Guy wrote:
We setup our 2011 Wrangler up this summer, at the time I didn't go with the Cooltech as I looked up the wrong part (for the new JL) and didn't care to deal with it. But now that I know I had the wrong part I'm ordering it and will be ditching the the magnetic lights.

I'm going to link to my full write up I did last August; Jeep Wrangler ReadyBrake Elite II Setup

I opted to get a new bumper that used pass through bolts and bought the Rock Hard 4x4 Blue Ox Tow Bar Bracket Kit (RH-8000-BO) as the connection point for the tow bars. All the parts I used are at the bottom of the page.

I did link to some video's that I used to guide me during the install.

Yeah, I read your write-up, knew about your setup. I was one of the ones that mentioned in that thread about not running wires across bare paint for the magnetic lights. Glad to see you ditching that approach.

I know you used the Rugged Ridge Spartan front bumper. Have you had any issues with it like I mentioned above, with bolting on the blue ox brackets causing the bumper to deform, or powder coat to peel off? I read some reviews indicating they had that problem, which is why I was hesitant to go that route.

I will be curious to hear how your experience goes with the Cooltech harness with a JK model, as I am really on the fence still as far as what to do with the tail light wiring. Really leaning toward separate bulbs, but we'll see.

[Y-Guy]

We setup our 2011 Wrangler up this summer, at the time I didn't go with the Cooltech as I looked up the wrong part (for the new JL) and didn't care to deal with it. But now that I know I had the wrong part I'm ordering it and will be ditching the the magnetic lights.

I'm going to link to my full write up I did last August; Jeep Wrangler ReadyBrake Elite II Setup

I opted to get a new bumper that used pass through bolts and bought the Rock Hard 4x4 Blue Ox Tow Bar Bracket Kit (RH-8000-BO) as the connection point for the tow bars. All the parts I used are at the bottom of the page.

I did link to some video's that I used to guide me during the install.

[willald]

For me, the hardest part about installing the Ready Brute cables was getting up the courage to poke the holes in the firewall in a brand new vehicle. Once I got that under control it was a simple task to install the cables.

Well, this one isn't new, technically, its 4 years old. And, there is considerably more room down there on the firewall than there was on the last two vehicles I installed the Readybrake cable. Sooo, I'm not worried about that part. 🙂

Similarly with the wiring: I liked the CoolTech harness, but didn't like the price so I sourced my own wire and switch and built my own version. I put the switch in the dash rather than under the passenger seat so it's more convenient to reach from the driver's seat, but it required routing the wire up behind the dash. I think I spent less than $30 for everything for that harness.

Yeah, I'm seeing that the Cooltech harness is pretty expensive. I'm now debating between a Hopkins custom kit that plugs directly into factory wiring harnesses at each tail light (cost about $84), or maybe a separate bulb kit, as it seems the Jeep taillight assembly has plenty of room to put in separate tail lights. Not sure yet.

On my Gladiator I went with the Rugged Ridge Spartan bumper. It won't add too much weight up front because it's replacing the OEM bumper, not adding to it. I don't recall the actual weight of the bumper, but it wasn't much more than the OEM one - I had no problem installing it by myself.

Hmmm.....I read some bad reviews on that one, saying that when they bolted the blue ox brackets on, it deformed the bumper and cause the powder coat to flake off. That was other reason I was a bit afraid of that one. Have you not had any issues with that? That, and I read where the company that made it openly admitted their bumper was not designed to do such.

On my wife's old Wrangler (2107 JKU) we used the Blue Ox base plate - it did hang down from the front and while we never had it impact the ground the thought was always there because it DOES reduce your approach angle a bit.

Indeed so, although I'm leaning more and more that direction, as I don't see us doing any really hard core offroading where approach angle would be a factor. Other good thing about the Blue Ox base plate, is there is already a place right there on it for the 6 way wiring connector and the readybrake cable. Otherwise, would have to figure out another place to put those.

...on my wife's new 2022 Wrangler we're going with the Maximus 3 Tow loops - they hang below the bumper, but not as far as the Blue Ox base plate. She decided she didn't want to change out the bumper...

Hadn't seen those, but looking at it, not sure how you'd attach Blue ox style Clevis attachments to it?

[Alan_Hepburn]

jdc1 wrote:
I doubt the Blue Ox base plate will be any lower than the differential is right now.

Well, no, but it's not ground clearance so much as it's the approach angle that is a concern.

[Alan_Hepburn]

willald wrote:

We went with this silver 2018 Unlimited Sport model (JK). I wanted one that was built on a ladder frame (not unibody), so that was why we didn't look for anything newer than 2018, and wanted a JK model.

The newer JL and JT models still use the same ladder frame. I don't think that will EVER change so long as the Wranglers are in production.

At any rate, that brings us to what I wanted to talk about here: Setting up a Jeep Wrangler for flat towing. We use the Readybrute/Readybrake on the Taurus, so will be setting up the Jeep with the Readybrake and Readystop cables. I will probably get a Cooltech wiring harness and wire in the Jeep tailights for flat towing. Any hints, suggestions on installing the wiring harness and readybrake cable, would be welcome. 🙂

For me, the hardest part about installing the Ready Brute cables was getting up the courage to poke the holes in the firewall in a brand new vehicle. Once I got that under control it was a simple task to install the cables. Similarly with the wiring: I liked the CoolTech harness, but didn't like the price so I sourced my own wire and switch and built my own version. I put the switch in the dash rather than under the passenger seat so it's more convenient to reach from the driver's seat, but it required routing the wire up behind the dash. I think I spent less than $30 for everything for that harness.

What I'm mostly struggling with right now has to do with the base plate set up in the front. I see a couple options:

1. Replace front bumper with one that allows you to bolt the Blue Ox brackets directly to the front, like the Rock Hard 4x4 Patriot or Rugged Ridge Spartan bumper. Really like this idea, but problem is, unless you spend a ton of $$ on an aluminum bumper, you are looking at a steel bumper that is very, very heavy. Don't want to make this jeep any heavier than it already is if I can avoid it. Are there any bumper options out there, that you can connect blue ox brackets to, aren't so heavy, and not so hard on the wallet?

On my Gladiator I went with the Rugged Ridge Spartan bumper. It won't add too much weight up front because it's replacing the OEM bumper, not adding to it. I don't recall the actual weight of the bumper, but it wasn't much more than the OEM one - I had no problem installing it by myself.

2. Blue Ox base plate, installed right under the bumper - Really leaning this direction, but hate that it sits so low under the bumper, and vulnerable to a rock or something hitting it, as we do plan to do some off-roading now and then.

On my wife's old Wrangler (2107 JKU) we used the Blue Ox base plate - it did hang down from the front and while we never had it impact the ground the thought was always there because it DOES reduce your approach angle a bit.

3. Currie Rock Jock tow bar mounting kit - This one replaces front air dam/chin under the bumper with a steel piece that has tow hooks incorporated into it, that tow bar would attach to. Like this one, too, and its definitely the least expensive, but questioning how strong it'd be, given the way it attaches. Its just bolted on top to the stock bumper, and on bottom to frame cross member. Doesn't bolt directly to frame rails like other ones do, so not sure if it'd be as solid. That, and the position of the tow hooks has me concerned it'd make the tow bar clevises rub up against bottom of the (stock) bumper.

I don't have any knowledge of the Currie system, but on my wife's new 2022 Wrangler we're going with the Maximus 3 Tow loops - they hang below the bumper, but not as far as the Blue Ox base plate. She decided she didn't want to change out the bumper...

[Lwiddis]

That's a very good looking Jeep.