Tow with tailgate down

[Wavery]

Originally Posted by Bill

Wavery -

When I said the tailgate comes down on the TOP of the jack, this is what I meant. I guess some trucks have a bigger tailgate than others, but no amount of tweaking is going to help this situation. And the side-mount jack would interfere with the swing-tongue hinge.

Bill

Bill,

You'd be surprised how much difference 2" would make in your situation.

I'd turn that jack 120*, so that the handle is facing away from the t/gate. Your trailer hitch drawbar is exceptionally short. If the shank on the drawbar is long enough, you could put your jack down to support the tongue, pull the pin on the drawbar and carefully move the truck forward until the t/gate drops down. Now, mark where the pin should go through the hitch to the draw bar. Just put a new location hole on the drawbar. Pull the draw bar out and see if there is enough shank to drill a new hole (some drawbars even come with 2-holes). If not, go to Walmart and by a new drawbar. Just take the measurement from the center of the ball to the new hole location with you. Be sure that the new drawbar is longer than that.

Whatever you do, I would recommend NOT using a drawbar extension. I'm pretty sure that you can find and acceptable drawbar without using an extension.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by wavery

I'd turn that jack 120*, so that the handle is facing away from the t/gate.

Wavery -

Look closer. The handle is not involved in the problem. I could remove the handle entirely, and it would make no difference.

On the other hand, the longer drawbar you suggest might be a good solution. I chose a short drawbar because my trailer has those much-despised curly safety cables instead of safety chains. Even with the short drawbar, the safety cables barely reach the Quick Link hookup loops, and they are a real pain to hook up.

If I want to get a longer drawbar, I would seem to have two options. Get rid of the curly cables and get chains. Or add one or two more Quick Links in series with each existing one. This last is not a good solution because the links hang down in the rod grime, which makes hookup even harder.

My TM is out for service at the moment, but I will ponder this issue in the meantime. Thanks for your input.

Bill

[earlfo]

Thank you all for your feedback.

I have determined the best option for me is going to be a Ford Transit 250 Medium roof AWD regular length cargo van.

Now I just need to find a nice new TM 3124KB to go with it.

Earl