Protecting Your Towed Car
If
you tow a car behind your motorhome you are well aware of the damage
that can occur to its glass and paint. If you were trying to create
a place to test a vehicle under horrid conditions, you couldn't
pick a place any worse than sitting tight behind a big motorhome.
The wheels and suction of the motorhome passing over the dirt, gravel,
tar, and oils of the highway swirl all this stuff into the air and
the towed car is in direct line to receive it.
A cheap fix to protect the windshield is to place an inexpensive home
floor mat over it, pull it tight, and shut the car doors on it. Sometimes
in a heavy rain you might get a trickle of water inside the car, but that's
a small price to pay to protect your windshield from sand blasting, and
worse.
 To protect
the front of the vehicle you can purchase a shield that fastens to some
of the manufacture's towbars. But you can build one too. The one in this
article is built for a Blue-Ox baseplate on a Jeep Liberty. In the close-up
pictures of the protective guard you can see the damage caused by stones
and gravel. Yet no damage occurred on the front of the car.
Take a sheet of ¼" finished plywood and cut out a piece
long enough to extend across the front of the vehicle, and tall
enough to send the flying debris up over the hood. Two pieces of
½" steel pipe bolted to the plywood and inserted into
a bracket will hold the guard in place, and make it easy to put
it onto the car, or lift it off. Place a pin through the pipe and
the bracket to hold the guard in place.
Cut small radius curves in the corners of the plywood so it doesn't
have sharp corners. Cut out a section in the bottom centre so the
towbar has lots of room to move. Paint it with several coats of
paint so that water doesn't penetrate and weaken the plywood.
I did have one made of Lucite but it couldn't take the larger stones
and began to get star cracks in several places. This wooden one
has lasted for several thousand miles and lots of rainy roads. And
it's cheap to make.
To hold the pipes, create a bracket with short vertical tubes big
enough to hold the ends of the 1/2" pipe on the guard. Fasten
the bracket on a non-moving part of the towbar, such as the anchors
for the tow chains.
Happy RVing!
For more than four decades James Stoness has travelled
the roads of North America, photographing and writing about what he has
seen. His travel articles and beautiful pictures have been published in
several magazines and newspapers. He is also the author of five western
novels.
In the “Touring North America” scenic tour series, James brings a new
concept in Scenic Travel Books. The premise that several Minitours can
be created so they interlink, makes it possible for the potential traveller
to chain several Minitours together to make a longer trip. The maps, coloured
photographs, and descriptions help you plan your trip, and enjoy your
progress along the route.
Visit James at www.stonesstravelguides.com.
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