A-Frame towing setup for bush truck

[NB42]

I have a 94 Isuzu Mu that I am doing up as a bush truck (cut down etc.) and I am going to a-frame it to the tracks. My question is how do people set their trucks up for this? Mounting the a-frame, length between mounts and towbar.. etc. Also I would preferably want it mounted to the bush truck so it can be removed at the tracks without too much trouble. Trailering it is out of the question and I have seen Mu's a-framed before so it can be done. Any help/tips for setting this up will be much appreciated. Cheers

[Mudde1]

The NZ Motor caravan assn used to have a lot of info on this including calculating the correct length of a frame for your towing and towed vehicle, but i haven't checked their site recently. Legal requirements are very basic for a "disabled" vehicle. In short, it just needs to be safe and have lights.

[Checkerhead]

I A-framed my safari/hilux project from Rotorua to Christchurch behind my Jeep.

Did a fair bit of research before I did it. Lots of people said I would die if I tie the steering wheel. Lots said I would die if I did not tie the steering wheel.

After only 100km of driving I ended up tying the steering wheel. This towed fine on the open road, I could not tell it was "not able to steer". If I left it untied it would be ok, but would occasionally develop a hell shimmy that felt like it would snap the tow bar off or shake me off the road real quick. Tying the wheel meant that this shimmy did not grow exponentially. It might start and I could get on the brakes and it would sort it's self out. Untied, it kept going till I stopped. I guess having a good steering damper would have been way better than tying the steering wheel. (I had no damper). Also I would say make sure you have all the normal steering stuff in good condition. Good bushes, good wheel alignment, good pressure in the tyres etc etc.

Steering wheel tied was a bit hairy driving around small roundabouts. Absolutely must brake BEFORE the corner and accelerate through/out. Other wise it pushed me sideways. (lucky I was going super slow round the first few to figure out what it would do)

A-frame length. I didn't pay to much attention. I had about 2.5 meters from towball to front axle.

A frame height. I made sure the mount on the towed vehicle was higher than the towball height on the tow vehicle. This means that when I brake, the project truck pushes forward and down on the jeep. This increases the weight and therefore the grip on the rear wheels of my tow vehicle. ie I had more grip for braking. I think that is fairly important.

Lastly, as it was a heavy "trailer" and I had a long trip and wanted to be all legal and legit, I used a braked trailer coupling and plumbed the brakes of my rear axle to the trailer. All in all, the whole lot stopped pretty damn good (Jeep XJ's are known for being bit under braked anyway). If you are doing a lot of A-framing you could maybe mount a second set of callipers and have something that is easily removable from the draw bar to provide brakes under tow but out of the way while wheeling.

That is my one and only A-framing experience so I am by no means an expert. But it was 900km and I made it.
Bit of a long reply but I found solid info really hard to come by, lot's of second hand info or 20 year old info, or guys towing suzukis with a bus. Not much on similar weight vehicles. So I have told you everything I can think of t the moment.

If you have any questions feel free to PM or ring etc.

Arron.