Steering Drift with Toad

Paul,
Your thought process in regards to the potential different length arms on the tow bar, is slightly off. By that I mean, the tow bars are pretty much a dead triangle. That is, the two legs, when locked, are exactly the same length. And, due to them being that way, it's quite often that, when the coach is parked and, the toad is driven up to the back of it, to be hooked up via the tow bar, if the toad is not "dead on straight" behind the coach, what will happen is, the tow bar can be hooked up without issue but, if you now back the toad up a bit to lock either of the two arms, only ONE will lock.

That's because as you're backing the toad to lock them, the longest attachment (of the attachment points of the two arms) will lock first. But, if the car is slightly angled of the coach, even a tiny bit, then the shorter one, will not lock because it cannot travel far enough to lock.


So, what I do in that case is, after everything is all hooked up and I know one is not locked, we jump in the coach and, start to take off. Since I always hookup with the motorhome having plenty of room for going straight ahead, I fire up the coach and put it in drive and, take off, very slowly. As I'm driving the first few feet, I turn the motor homes steering wheel from straight ahead to about 9:00 and let it make a super slight turn then, I turn the wheel to about 3:00 and do the same thing.

What that does is, allows for GARANTEED locking of both arms in the tow bar because you're applying maximum distance that both those arms can travel, and then lock. It works every single time. Just some info for you here.
Scott

It's an '03 Ford Class C 24' long towing a 4Runner with a Demco tow bar. I've towed Jeep Cherokees over 20,000 miles with the same motorhome but with an old Roadmaster Stowmaster tow bar. I'm thinking that I don't have the angle of the tow bar head set quite right and the result is that one arm is effectively longer than the other. With the Demco tow bar, the arms are stacked where they attach to the head; therefore, tilting the head will change the effective length of the arms.

Need a bit more information. Motorhome description and toad description.

If you have a blueox check the tow bars. The levers can be up in the lock position but not be completely locked in. Happened to me affected my steering on MH. After 6 repair shops later for looking at front end drifting problems on MH found out it was the one tow bar not locking completely and swinging the MH when driving.

I'm kind-a wondering about this statement. Are you saying that one of the two locking devices on the tow bar, are not locking in the extended position? If so, then that would mean only one is doing the stopping because, the other one is not locked and therefore, is collapsing during compression or, braking. And, if that's happening, you're putting some serious twist and torque on the locked up side. Now, I realize that you've already had this problem taken care of but, just wondering.

I've had both of my Blue Ox tow bars completely apart, an Aventa II and the Aladdin. Both of which have some serious locking detents built into the extension bars. They either lock, or they don't. There is no in-between.
Scott

If you have a blueox check the tow bars. The levers can be up in the lock position but not be completely locked in. Happened to me affected my steering on MH. After 6 repair shops later for looking at front end drifting problems on MH found out it was the one tow bar not locking completely and swinging the MH when driving.

Again the levers 'where' up and 'appeared' locked. You can take off a part and look inside and see that it is not fully engaged but enough to send the lever up. And enough to move to affect the handling on the MH. Blue Ox replaced my whole tow bar for free.