Montana Run '22: Tow Bar Ideas for Square K5 & Burb
 

A buddy and I are planning to caravan 1,700 miles up to Montana next summer in my '78 K5 and his '90 Burb. We're meeting friends up there to do some flyfishing. We're playing around with the idea of installing identical mounts on the front bumpers for a tow bar in case one of the two craps out on the way. It would allow us to continue on to our destination without delay. Has anyone done this. We'd setup brake control for each. It's pushing over the GCWR of the pair assuming they weigh around 6K each. But seems different than regular towing because you're not really dealing with tongue weight. Just need some thoughts from my peeps.

Re: Montana Run '22: Tow Bar Ideas for Square K5 & Burb
 

For whatever reason, nobody has responded in over 24 hours so I'll take that as my invitation to jump in...

My two-cents would be just make the trip and don't plan for failure. Our trucks could have suffered a break down on the trip home from the dealer lot, but it wasn't common. As long as you've made reasonable efforts to make your rigs reliable you can likely expect similar results.

I'm from Montana and know its vast territory well - even if you do break down, attaching a tow strap to the disabled rig will get you to the nearest point of repair easier than a dedicated tow bar. Even if (imaginary scenario) you were to get stuck on I-15 at the top of Monida Pass you would only be 60 slow tow miles from Dillon, or 30 miles the other way to return to Dubois ID. Breaking down in the vast empty spaces on the two-lane roads of eastern Montana aren't much different - the hay-hand in his bosses truck will probably stop and offer to help and know where to source parts.

Regardless, I've been watching this post mainly to see if anyone at anytime had ever fabricated a tow bar for a squarebody. Still interested to see if it ever happened, which it probably did. Flat-towing was far more common back in the 70's than it is now, so I can only assume somebody must have done it for some reason or another. For enough money I'm confident I could dig out three within a 20 mile radius of me made specifically for Jeep CJ-5's, but nothing much bigger. I hope this bump triggers somebody's memory or even better a photo just so we could see what would pull a flat-tow pig like a squarebody.

Re: Montana Run '22: Tow Bar Ideas for Square K5 & Burb
 

it should work fine, just made sure the tow bar is level when you're pulling.