Dann's on fire!! Help! Help!

No, not really but with Dave's last wave of posts, I thought I better come up with something that stood out.

So Dann just called me. He is flat-towing Herbie down to LA with a brand-new Empi tow bar that I just picked up for him the other day. This is the first time he's towed him this way. For some reason, at parking lot speeds and especially when he turns to the right, the front wheels wobble back and forth violently. He actually has to stop the car to get it to stop. The car acts fine out on the highway though.

What are your thoughts? I was kinda leaning towards not enough caster but it's doing something I've never heard of before. He said the car drives fine, it just isn't towing well.

The problem you have with tow bars is that when you start to turn right, the hitch kicks to the left a little and so the car starts to go left and then has to quickly turn to the right.

This usually happens at low speeds and the car 'wobbles' trying to straighten out.

Alignment problems can make this worse I have heard.

He could try adding some weight to the front end and putting a bungee around the steering column.

As a test, you could have someone sit in the car and tow it around a parking lot to see if adding weight helps any...

My 2 cents...

Great 2 cents. Are his tires out of balance. OMG that is such a nice car I bet he is not well.


Good luck Dann

My 66 did that when I towed it home from Denver to Colorado Springs. Once I got it going was fine.. all the way home. Even thru town was okay until I turned a corner going up hill to my house then it started doing so bad I pulled over and drove the bug up the hill into the driveway.

Matt's idea might be a good one.. throw a sack or two of sand under the hood. It will change the geometry of the steering.. since no one is in it.

My old 74 Standard did that really bad. I believe Mateo is correct. Add alignment issues and a worn out part or two, and it's even worse.

Makes sense guys. Thanks for your replies. I'll pass this on to Dann.

Tire balance

STEERING STABILIZER TIRED AND NOT WORKING AS IT SHOULD. A POSSIBLE BAD PART. I CANT SAY IVE EVER HAD A PROBLEM WITH TOWING A BUG WITH MY BAR. MAYBE I NEVER NOTICED IT TOWING WITH A 75 BLAZER OR THE 91 DODGE DIESEL.

Don had something like it the other day when he put a set of out of balanced tires on his Super

type 4 wrote:

Tire balance

It would shake the tits right off of you while driving though......

Don almost lost it it shook so bad. Tires were off

It doesn't shake at all. I think Cliff hit the nail on the head with the stabilizer. It only does it to the right and only if I turned sharp at low speeds. It would go completely right then left and right then left and so on 'til I stopped and turned to the left a little. It would then correct itself and tow fine. It never did it when I turned to the left. Weird.

And yet here's another sign of the shoddy restoration that was done on the car.

Was the right hand turns tighter.. Think about an intersection a right turn is much tighter than a left one

silvertonguedevil wrote:

And yet here's another sign of the shoddy restoration that was done on the car.

Watch it junior.